the speci c clinical needs of Covid-19
patients, and it is suited to a variety of
clinical settings. The core challenge
was how to design and deliver a
new, sophisticated medical product
in volume and in an extremely short
space of time. The race is now on to
get it into production.
“The Dyson Digital motor sits at
the heart of the new device and the
motor’s design is optimised to have
a very high level of intrinsic safety,
making it particularly well-suited for
industrial, high volume production.
The device is designed to achieve
a high-quality air supply to ensure
its safety and effectiveness, drawing
on our air puri er expertise which
delivers high-quality ltration in highvolume
products.
“Ventilators are a regulated
product so Dyson and TTP will be
working with the MHRA and the
government to ensure that the product
and the manufacturing process is
approved. We have received an
initial order of 10,000 units from the
UK government which we will supply
on an open-book basis. We are also
looking at ways of making it available
internationally.
“I am proud of what Dyson
engineers and our
partners at TTP have
achieved. I am eager
to see this new device in
production and in hospitals as
soon as possible. This is clearly
a time of grave international crisis, I
will therefore donate 5,000 units to the
international effort, 1,000 of which will
go to the United Kingdom.”
Some questioned the decision to
give Dyson and TTP this contract, But
Matt Hancock, the health secretary,
said that the government was
working with companies that
already produce ventilators
too.“Frankly right across the
world, the demand for
ventilators is incredibly
high so it is not possible to
produce too many,” he said.
“So anyone that can, should
turn their production and
their engineering minds to
the production of ventilators,”
he said.
Proof of this has
come in the form
of Ventilator
Challenge UK,
A consortium
of signi cant
UK industrial, technology and
engineering businesses from
across the aerospace, automotive
and medical sectors, that has
come together to produce medical
ventilators for the UK. On 16 April,
this consortium announced that it
had secured MHRA approval for
a ventilator design, meaning the
medical device can now be used in
hospitals across the country.
Ventilator Challenge UK,
led by Dick Elsy, CEO of High
Value Manufacturing Catapult, is
accelerating the production of a new
ventilator design based on existing
technologies. The designs can be
assembled from materials and parts
in current production. Component
manufacturing and assembly of
existing ventilator designs by Smiths
Medical and Penlon are being
scaled up across the country at
different manufacturing sites.
The consortium has also
commenced deliveries
of the Smiths Group’s
existing paraPAC plus
design, which already has
regulatory approval.
Elsy said of this
announcement: “I’m very
pleased to con rm that we
have now secured MHRA
approval for the Penlon Prima
ESO2 device which has been
undergoing stringent testing and
clinical trials for the last two weeks.
Ventilators of this type are complex
and critical pieces of medical
equipment so ensuring the absolute
adherence to regulatory standards
and meeting clinical needs were
always our priorities. We will now
accelerate the ramp up of production
at the Penlon site in Oxfordshire
and the new VCUK production lines
we’ve built in Broughton, Dagenham
and Woking. Having already
commenced deliveries of the Smiths
Group’s paraPAC plus devices, we
are working closely with our supply
chain partners to rapidly scale up
production to achieve our target
of at least 1,500 units a week of the
combined Penlon and Smiths models.
I want to take this opportunity to
again thank every member of the
consortium and the hundreds
of dedicated colleagues who
have been working day and
night to get us to this point.”
MAY 2020 | WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK 11
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Providing it
receives regulatory
approval, the government
will pay for 10,000 of Dyson
and TTP’s ventilators.
A further 1,000 will be
donated here, while the
remaining 4,000 are
being produced for
other countries
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