Respiratory Devices at the Helm of COVID-19

Unexpected outbreaks and rapid transmission of COVID-19 led to a significant burden on the healthcare systems of both developed and developing economies. As the virus primarily affects the respiratory system, the demand for respiratory devices has witnessed exponential growth in the first quarter of 2020. Mechanical ventilators are essential for the treatment of COVID-19, which results in acute respiratory failure. Existing shortage and sudden spike in demand for mechanical ventilators have led to an increased gap between the demand and supply curves. As per recent estimates from the American Hospital Association, nearly 260,000 Americans might require artificial ventilation due to this pandemic. However, as per Timothy Myers, a respiratory therapist and chief business officer of the American Association for Respiratory Care, currently, there are only 100,000 ventilators in the U.S., which has led to a panic situation amongst decision-makers in the country. The following are a few initiatives undertaken by the government, public, and private entities to overcome this significant shortage of ventilators.·

Capacity Expansion: Key ventilator manufacturers are ramping up their production capacity. For instance, Medtronic, one of the largest medical device manufacturers, has increased its production capacity by 40% in the last couple of months and is planning to double this in the coming 2-3 months.

Manufacturing of ventilators at automotive assembly lines: Key automotive manufacturers are collaborating and lending their assembly lines to existing ventilator manufacturers to ramp up the production of these devices. For instance, Tesla partnered with Medtronic, Ford partnered with GE Healthcare, and General Motors partnered with Vnetec Life Systems to ramp up the production of ventilators.

Emergency use authorization of makeshift devices: Biomedical engineers and scientists are developing makeshift devices that mimic the basic functionality of ventilators, using respiratory devices such as manual resuscitators, PAP devices, anesthesia gas machines, and others. Furthermore, the U.S. FDA is also allowing the use of these devices under the Emergency Use Authorization scheme.

Open source generic ventilator: In an interview with CNBC, the CEO of Medtronic also discussed the possibility of publishing the designs of basic ventilators on open source in order to encourage smaller establishments to come up with replicas of these devices, which will be beneficial for the treatment of lesser critical patients.·

Proper allocation of ventilators: In the same interview, Mr. Omar Ishark also mentioned the importance of proper allocation of these devices. This essentially entails the transportation of ventilators in worst-hit regions/countries/states from the less affected places or from the places where the outbreak is controlled.·

Ventilator sharing: A few healthcare professionals are also contemplating the sharing of ventilators between 2-3 patients. However, clinicians do not recommend this practice as it has few associated risks including a drop in the required pressure and the less likelihood of two patients requiring the same pressure setting. At the time of writing this article, the global total active cases of COVID-19 is nearly 510,000 patients, of which over 5% are in critical condition. As we understand, the scale of this pandemic is so massive that the existing healthcare system will find it difficult to control this situation even in the next two to three months. Post-June or July 2020, the gap between the demand and supply will be marginalized. From a business point of view, this pandemic has presented significant opportunities for key respiratory device manufacturers to increase their market share in the next two quarters. In the long term, the respiratory device industry might witness sluggish growth as most of the healthcare establishments will equip themselves in terms of having enough inventory for the next 2-3 years.