“We could increase production five-fold in a 90- to 120-day period,” says Chris Kiple, chief executive of Ventec Life Systems, a Bothell, Wash. firm that makes ventilators used in hospitals, homes and ambulances. He’d have to tool up production lines, train assemblers and testers and get parts. The ventilator industry is getting a burst of desperate orders from China and Italy. “Every ventilator [maker] has individually engineered products,” says Richard Branson, a respiratory therapist and emeritus professor at the University of Cincinnati. The average hospital-level machine might cost $25,000 in normal times, Branson says, although an ICU ventilator with all the latest features could run double that.

Source: Forbes March 14, 2020 18:56 UTC