COVID-19’s Unconventional Innovators

Christian Soriano and Brandon Maxwell are fighting COVID-19 with sewing machines and pattern tables. Marty Culpepper is doing the same through die cutting, while Gidi Grinstein and Sir James Dyson are equipped with 3D printers and digital motors, respectively.

Meet medtech’s newest product innovators.

As the 5-month-old coronavirus continues to ravage the planet, companies from almost every industrial sector are lending a hand in bolstering supplies of much-needed medical equipment like respirators, face masks, and hospital gowns. Luxury and fashion brands Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Joseph Abboud, Hanesbrands Inc., Knix, Maceoo, and Vince, as well as Chinese electronics behemoth Foxconn, are now in the face mask business, whereas Kontoor Brands Inc. (Wrangler and Lee Denim’s parent firm) and costumers from the HBO/BBC series “His Dark Materials” are supplying hospital scrubs, Level 1 patient gowns, and disposable isolation garments to medics. Similarly, automotive icons General Motors, Ford, and Tesla, along with British appliance maker Dyson, are expanding their product lineups to include ventilators.

“From a historical perspective, I would just say that it is in the Ford DNA to help in a time of need,” company spokesman Ted Ryan told TIME. “We have a strong heritage of help when called to do so.”

That heritage dates back nearly eight decades with Ford’s development of a portable, humidified oxygenated incubator (1941) and the iron lung (1948). For its latest undertaking, the multinational industrialist is dabbling in ventilator production, personal protection equipment, and diagnostics; its alliance with Thermo Fisher Scientific, for instance, will help expand COVID-19 testing (Ford helped its partner adapt machinery to produce plastic vials used in drive-through coronavirus test collection), while its union with airbag supplier Joyson Safety Systems will provide hospitals with reusable gowns made from airbag material (nylon). Ford also is manufacturing full-face shields at its U.S., Canadian, and Thai facilities, and with venture partner Mahindra & Mahindra in India (the company had produced more than 3 million face shields as of mid-April).

To help mitigate the ventilator shortage, Ford is helping 3M accelerate manufacturing of its powered air-purifying respirator and developing a new design that leverages parts from both companies. In addition, Ford is transforming part of its Rawsonville, Mich., components plant to manufacture a third-party ventilator with GE Healthcare—aiming to produce 50,000 of the breathing machines by July 4—and is reopening an idled factory to manufacture MRI-compatible ventilators from Melbourne, Fla.-based Airon Corporation. Apart from that, Ford is lending its expertise to help meet demand for 15,000 ventilators ordered by the British government, providing manufacturing engineering capability, project leadership, purchasing support, and assembly of Penlon Ltd. ventilators at its Dagenham engine plant.

“We knew that to play our part helping combat coronavirus, we had to go like hell and join forces with experts like 3M to expand production of urgently needed medical equipment and supplies,” Jim Baumbick, vice president, Ford Enterprise Product Line Management, said in an April 13 statement. “In just three weeks, we’ve unleashed our manufacturing, purchasing, and design talent to get scrappy and start making personal protection equipment and help increase the availability and production of ventilators.”

Such scrappiness is not unique to Ford, though. GM, Tesla, and other non-medical manufacturers are tapping into their creativity to meet surging demand for coronavirus extermination tools. GM is manufacturing Ventec ventilators at its Kokomo, Ind., factory and increasing its face mask production capacity at its Warren, Mich., facility. Two of the company’s automotive manufacturing suppliers helped GM build a mask line that automatically folds, welds, and cuts face masks. Tesla, meanwhile, has promised to convert its New York State battery and solar panel factory over to ventilator manufacturing, and Dyson is teaming with The Technology Partnership on a new ventilator that can be mounted on a hospital bed and run on battery power in field-hospital conditions. Dyson intends to produce 10,000 devices for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.

“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…” founder Sir James Dyson explained to employees in an email, Fast Company reported. “The device is designed to achieve a high quality air supply to ensure its safety and effectiveness, drawing on our air purifier expertise which delivers high-quality filtration in high-volume products.”

Mercedes Formula One, however, is thinking outside the box to solve the ventilator shortage. The company, aided by University College London engineers and University College London Hospital clinicians, has developed a continuous positive airway pressure machine that is far less invasive than a ventilator. Used to treat sleep apnea, CPAP machines push an air-oxygen mix into the lungs in a steady flow at high pressure; they do not require a face mask, heavy sedation, or insertion of tubes.

So far, 100 of the Mercedes F1 team’s devices are undergoing trials; the device has already been approved for use in U.K. hospitals, but they have not yet been thoroughly field tested. If they pass trials, the Mercedes F1 team could build as many as 1,000 devices daily.

“These devices will help save lives by ensuring that ventilators, a limited resource, are used only for the most severely ill,” UCLH critical care consultant Mervyn Singer said on March 30. “We hope they will make a real difference to hospitals across the U.K. by reducing demand on intensive care staff and beds, as well as helping patients recover without the need for more invasive ventilation.”