The Health and Human Services Department announced on Wednesday that it had signed contracts with Philips and General Motors under the Defense Production Act to deliver tens of thousands of ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile, but most of the devices will not be available for months.

The federal government will pay Philips $646.7 million to deliver 2,500 ventilators to the stockpile by the end of May, and 43,000 by the end of the year. The announcement comes after President Donald Trump invoked the DPA, a federal emergency law, for Philips and five other medical device companies last Friday. The other firms other firms will receive similar contracts “in the coming weeks,” HHS said in a statement.


Under the General Motors contract, announced earlier this morning, the automaker will deliver 6,132 ventilators by June 1 and a total of 30,000 by the end of August for a cost of $489.4 million. Trump invoked the DPA for GM on March 27 after slamming the automaker for “wasting time” in negotiations with the federal government.