The Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday announced a second major purchase of ventilators, buying more than 43,000 ventilators from the manufacturer Philips for $646.7 million.

The ventilators will go into the national stockpile, which gets distributed across the country, in chunks. Philips will make a first delivery by the end of May of 2,500 ventilators, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. The company will deliver a total of 43,000 ventilators by the end of the year.

The major purchase comes hours after the department announced a similar contract for the auto company General Motors to make ventilators.

The contract with Philips, a company that was already a major presence in building ventilators, comes under the Trump administration's announcement to use the Defense Production Act to get more needed supplies to aid the fight against the coronavirus epidemic.

HHS said it will award five other companies contracts under the DPA.

"The DPA is allowing the federal government to work with manufacturers, such as Philips, to accelerate production of ventilators and ensure that they go where they’re needed most," Secretary Alexander Azar said in a statement Wednesday. "HHS will continue awarding contracts to companies for which it has invoked the DPA for ventilator production, while we explore every possible avenue to get life-saving supplies to the frontlines of this war on the virus."

Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips, issued a statement, saying Philips is "actively collaborating with the U.S. government to help save lives in the U.S. and across the globe.”

“There is an unprecedented global demand for medical equipment to help diagnose and treat patients with COVID-19," van Houten said. "We welcome the support of the U.S. government in our efforts to aggressively increase the production of hospital ventilators. We believe in fair allocation of scarce medical equipment to those who need it the most, and we are ramping up to deliver 43,000 units to the most critical regions in the U.S. in the coming weeks and months through December 2020.”