Dayton, June 4, 2020: An ambitious and comprehensive collaborative effort has resulted in five successful prototype ventilators that are both low-cost and highly producible, addressing a projected shortfall of the medical devices desperately needed during the COVID-19 crisis.
The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (OUSD) contacted Wright Brothers Institute (WBI) to enlist their prototyping and innovation expertise under its Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Following the Hack-A-Vent Challenge initiated by the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and OUSD via the Vulcan platform, sponsored by USSOCOM, WBI was asked to guide, manage and support the five challenge winners to get their concepts to the FDA for EUA approval and ready for manufacturing. .
On March 28, a COVID-19 Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF) was formed, and on April 2, Vulcan V was approved to move forward with evaluation, testing and prototyping of the top five design solutions. WBI’s leadership broke through bureaucratic barriers and positioned the prototypes to move quickly through the design and FDA EUA approval processes in just over one month.
The teams came from defense contractors Northrup Grumman Corporation and L3Harris Technologies, small businesses BLU3 (a Florida-based dive company) and Coridea (a New York-based medical device innovation company) and one government lab, the Naval Surface Warfare Center – Panama City. The three designs currently in FDA EUA approval evaluation are from BLU3, Coridea and L3Harris Technologies.
The designs were evaluated at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; usability evaluations were performed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Facility. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) stands by as the production management lead, and the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office is acting as the developmental program lead.
Virtual collaboration from government agencies, designers, testing and acquisition professionals came together, cooperatively working to make nascent ventilator designs a reality.