After weeks of flirting with the heights hit before COVID-19 ravaged the markets, medtech stocks finally topped the pre-pandemic high last week. MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — spiked up to 93.11 points on Sep. 2, nearly a full point ahead of the pre-pandemic high of […]
General Motors
Ventec, GM complete HHS ventilator contract
Ventec Life Systems and General Motors announced today that they completed their government contract to produce 30,000 ventilators. The two companies kicked off mass production of Ventec’s V+Pro critical care ventilator at GM’s Kokomo, Ind., plant in April, having received a $489.4 million contract from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services to deliver […]
Report: Ventilators are piling up in government stockpiles
As the COVID-19 pandemic roars on, the government stockpile of once-in-demand ventilators has reportedly turned into a collection of unused devices. The Washington Post reports that, following the panic caused by an anticipated ventilator shortage and subsequent rush to add to the stockpile after President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, the approach to treating COVID-19 […]
Ventec to take over ventilator production at GM plant
Ventec Life Systems and General Motors have delivered more than 20,000 ventilators they built together at a GM plant, and GM plans to turn over production to the medtech company once their federal contract is completed, Ventec announced this week. Production of Ventec’s V+Pro critical care ventilators at the Kokomo, Ind., GM plant began in […]
GM receives N95 certification for Michigan-made respirators
General Motors (NYSE:GM) announced today that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has provided an N95-level certification for the respirators the automaker is churning out of its Warren, Mich. plant. NIOSH, which is part of the CDC, created the new certification process in order to increase the supply of filtering facepiece respirators needed […]
General Motors kicks off mass production of ventilators
General Motors today began mass production of the Ventec Life Systems V+Pro critical care ventilator at the automaker’s Kokomo, Ind. plant. GM and Ventec have a $489.4 million contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to deliver 6,132 ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile by the end of June, with 30,000 shipped […]
Trump orders GM to make ventilators
After a deal between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems to produce 80,000 ventilators briefly appeared halted, President Trump yesterday ordered GM to proceed under the Defense Production Act. A New York Times report earlier on Friday said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had paused the $1 billion plan, saying it needed time to determine […]
AdvaMed: Invoking Defense Production Act could hinder U.S. medtech imports
Forcing manufacturers to repurpose their production lines to make equipment to fight the coronavirus epidemic might actually hurt the U.S. supply of those items, the head of medtech trade group AdvaMed said today. AdvaMed officials have talked with U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn about medtech […]
Major U.S. manufacturers answering call for ventilator needs
U.S. manufacturers — inside and outside medtech — are offering help amid shortages of ventilators, respirator masks and more needed to combat coronavirus. News broke this week that Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York is reportedly experiencing shortages of masks and other protective equipment, and it is not alone in that regard. Last […]
Medtech startup teams with GM on robotic glove
(Reuters) — Bioservo Technologies, a medical technology startup that makes a light-weight robotic “extra muscle” glove for people with weak grips, is teaming up with carmaker General Motors (NYSE:GM) to design a model for industrial assembly workers. After built-in sensors on 3 fingertips record what the user does, the Swedish startup’s soft textile glove mimics and reinforces the movement […]
Swedish Bioservo Technologies licenses GM-NASA developed RoboGlove, looks to Med uses
Swedish medtech company Bioservo Technologies said today it is licensing robotic glove technology developed through a partnership between General Motors and NASA, looking to a possible developments of soft exoskeleton tech for medical uses. Bioservo will combine tech from its Soft Extra Muscle glove with the force-multiplying tech from the RoboGlove, planning uses for the […]
