General Motors, Ventec Life Team Up to Fight Coronavirus Crisis

General Motors Company GM is collaborating with Ventec Life Systems to boost the production of respiratory-care products in its battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

General Motors will manufacture VOCSN critical-care ventilators at its Indiana manufacturing facility, including the FDA-cleared ventilators scheduled for shipment as early as next month. The deal was announced shortly after President Trump criticized the car maker for not moving quickly enough to produce life-saving ventilators to combat the deadly virus. Notably, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States has crossed 142,000.

The VOCSN –– Ventec's first and only Multi-Function Ventilator –– incorporates five different devices into a single portable unit, including a critical-care ventilator, oxygen concentrator, cough assist, suction and nebulizer. VOCSN delivers invasive and non-invasive ventilation across a wide range of modes and settings throughout the care continuum from the hospital to the home.

General Motors and Ventec are poised to produce the first ventilators next month and ramp up to a production capacity of more than 10,000 critical care ventilators each month with the infrastructure and capability to scale further, depending on the federal government’s needs. In addition, the companies have established procurement plans for more than 700 individual parts required to build up to 200,000 VOCSN.

Moreover, General Motors, in collaboration with United Auto Workers (UAW), has brought back employees from its Indiana and Ohio facilities, and will immediately deploy an additional 1,000 workers to increase the development of critical-care ventilators.

Further, General Motors will begin manufacturing the FDA-cleared Level 1 surgical masks at its Michigan manufacturing facility, with production likely to begin next week. The company plans to ramp up to 50,000 masks per day within two weeks, with the potential to increase to 100,000 per day.

General Motors currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Various other auto bigwigs that have temporarily shut down auto plants are taking necessary steps to assist in the production of key medical equipment. U.S. carmaker Ford F is collaborating with 3M and GE Healthcare to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Also, Tesla TSLA has joined forces with medica-device maker Medtronic to make ventilators. Volkswagen VWAGY is in talks with authorities and has established an international task force to explore options, while Daimler AG and BMW AG are also exploring options to use 3D printers to produce ventilators.

However, across all manufacturers, there is a global backorder of critical-care ventilators capable to help patients battling COVID-19. The companies are adding thousands of units of new capacity with a significantly expanded supply chain capable of supporting high volume production.

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