Dr. Alexandra Pedersen and Dr. Tony Noble of the Arthur B McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute at Queen’s University outlined the Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) that a team of hundreds of physicists and engineers came together to build in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The MVM is a low cost, easy to operate piece of equipment that could be manufactured quickly at a large scale. The cost is about a quarter of the cost of existing ventilators. The team is awaiting Health Canada approval to go into full production. Meanwhile, Vexos and JMP Solutions are the two Canadian companies that have already started to manufacture basic components of the ventilator in anticipation of approval to move to full production that should have the ventilators on the market in 3 – 4 months, manufacturing around a thousand units per week.The added feature of the research institute’s ventilator is open access meaning no patent and any company or country can use the design free of charge.
Footnote several days after the presentation https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/health-canada-green-lights-ventilator-project.