Philips has joined forces with manufacturing partners Flex and Jabil to further expand its hospital ventilator assembly lines and strengthen its global supply chain. Fully featured hospital ventilators to invasively treat COVID-19 patients with respiratory insufficiency in critical care environments - such as the Philips Trilogy EV300 and Philips Respironics V60 - are complex medical devices. They contain more than 650 advanced, high-reliability components such as precision sensors and high performance motor blowers, as well as numerous complex software algorithms and more than one million lines of code.
Philips’ critical care ventilators feature life support capability, invasive ventilation capabilities, back-up battery power, redundant safety controls, and compatibility with patient monitors and nurse alarms. Philips’ software algorithms have been clinically validated at research sites across the globe and can adapt therapy to lung compliance and airway resistance to meet the dynamic needs of the patient.
Such hospital ventilators are not typically produced in large volumes, and Philips’ production ramp up from 500 units per week in January 2020 to 4,000 units per week by the third quarter of 2020 is a truly herculean effort. It requires decades of expertise, strong manufacturing infrastructure, skilled workforce, strong global network of suppliers for 650+ components, significant investments and trusted partners such as Flex and Jabil. Both companies have expertise in medical device technologies, and possess a global industry footprint, as well as a global network of certified materials and component suppliers.