Medtronic to share ventilator designs

Ventilators are in high demand at the moment

Irish headquartered medtech firm, Medtronic, is to publicly share the designs for one of its ventilator models to help people across the world to devise options for rapid ventilator manufacturing.

The move is designed to help doctors and patients combat the impact of Covid-19.

The Puritan Bennet 560 has been on sale for ten years and is sold in 35 countries around the world. It is suitable for both adults and children and can be used in hospitals and in home settings.

"By openly sharing the PB 560 design information, we hope to increase global production of ventilator solutions for the fight against COVID-19," said Bob White, executive vice-president of Medtronic.

The company has published product and service manuals as well as design requirement documents, manufacturing documents and schematics on its website for others to access.

The software code will be posted at a later date according to Medtronic.

Ventilators are currently in huge demand around the globe as frontline healthcare workers use them to save the lives of the most critically unwell Covid-19 patients.

A number of projects are underway to rapidly produce open source ventilators.