Philips, U.S. Gov team up to combat COVID-19

In a press release, Philips said that it plans to invest “several tens of millions of dollars” into the effort to double production by May and quadruple production by the third quarter of 2020. The mass production of ventilators is critical to the treatment of the most severe COVID-19 cases caused by the novel coronavirus. The partnership is designed to speed up access to critical materials and components and expedite logistics and regulatory approvals, in an effort to answer calls to action by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and World Health Organization (WHO). Royal Philips CEO Frans van Houten said, “We are actively collaborating with the U.S. government to help save lives in the U.S. and across the globe. There is an unprecedented global demand for medical equipment to help diagnose and treat patients with COVID-19. We welcome the support of the U.S. government in our efforts to aggressively increase the production of hospital ventilators. We believe in fair allocation of scarce medical equipment to those who need it the most, and we are ramping up to deliver 43,000 units to the most critical regions in the U.S. in the coming weeks and months through December 2020.” So far this year, Philips has delivered several thousand ventilators to U.S. hospitals. The current ramp up of ventilator production will include a batch for the New York hospital system to bring needed relief to the surge within the city of New York, which has now become the epicenter of the pandemic.