The UCL-Ventura breathing aid, a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, helps Covid-19 patients with lung infections to breathe more easily, when an oxygen mask alone is insufficient.

CPAP devices are in short supply in UK hospitals, so engineers at UCL and Mercedes-AMG HPP worked round-the-clock to reverse engineer a device that could be manufactured rapidly by the thousands.

The breathing aid was produced within a rapid timeframe – it took fewer than 100 hours from the initial meeting to production of the first device. Mark II of the device, which has reduced oxygen consumption by up to 70% compared to the Mark I model, received MHRA regulatory approval last week.

All the details required to make the device are also now available for manufacturers to download at no cost at covid19research.uclb.com/product/ucl-cpap, a research licensing website developed by UCL Business to disseminate technologies that may help the fight against Covid-19. The licensed package will include not only the designs, but will also specify materials, tools and kit used in the rapid prototyping process, as well as the fabrication time for each part.