Due to COVID-19, there has been a spike in demand for personal protective equipment (PPE), resulting in supply chain disruption as many PPE comes from China. According to the South China Morning Post, “China is now making more than 100 million masks a day, up from 20 million before the coronavirus outbreak.” Healthcare workers who are on the front lines of the pandemic are facing a dire shortage of testing supplies and PPE that keeps them safe and able to care for patients. Earlier this month, the World Healthcare Organization called on industries to increase manufacturing of PPE by 40% to meet the rising global demand.

“There have been many grassroots efforts that have popped up in response to this supply chain challenge. What we’ve done with the GENTL Mask is created an innovative mask design that is incredibly simple to make at scale,” said Chris Michaud, VP, EPAM Continuum. “Depending on the healthcare system, some hospitals are running out of surgical masks and some are running out of filtered masks. We set out to address both needs with a modular design and then quickly got to work creating prototypes of the GENTL Mask in our Made Real Lab™, a space that enables our clients and consumers to see, touch and experience new-to-the-world concepts for the first time. Leveraging EPAM’s broad network, the GENTL Mask is now under review by several leading healthcare organizations and health ministries around the world and in testing with several manufacturers and government agencies across a number of countries.”

The GENTL Mask offers an open source design that requires readily available materials and a simple manufacturing process, enabling localized manufacturing plants to help close the supply chain gap. Designed with a modular approach to be scaled quickly, the GENTL mask allows manufacturers to easily produce a two-layer version used for general protection or a flat-cut, three-layer version that utilizes industrial-grade filter materials capable of capturing particles above 1.0 µm for added protection.

“As a strong proponent of open source, our goal was to make the GENTL Mask available to everyone by offering it as an open source solution,” said Jitin Agarwal, VP, Enterprise Products, EPAM. “In an effort to protect our healthcare professionals and reduce the negative impact of the coronavirus, this solution connects two important markets – local manufacturers and local healthcare professionals – to help solve a global crisis.”

Learn more about the GENTL Mask at solutionshub.epam.com/solution/gentl-mask. For more information about the GENTL Mask or to connect with a local manufacturing source or hospital system, please contact GENTL_mask@epam.com.

EPAM Continuum is offering the GENTL Mask design idea as an Open Source offering to the community during this public health emergency. These statements and the GENTL Mask are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any specific diseases. The statements made with respect to the GENTL Mask have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other regulatory authority. The GENTL Mask has not been tested, nor has it been put through any necessary regulatory design review as may be typically associated with medical design and development. Individuals or organizations that manufacture masks utilizing the design and specifications are responsible for any federal or state regulatory requirements that apply to the manufacture or distribution of masks intended for medical use. Individuals and organizations are free to use, copy, modify and share this design and specifications, including for commercial manufacture, without payment of any fees or charges, but may not assert ownership in the design and specifications or “GENTL Mask” mark, ownership of which belongs to EPAM Continuum. EXCEPT WHERE SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED BY LAW, NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND ARE OFFERED FOR THE MASK DESIGN AND SPECIFICATIONS, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF NONINFRINGEMENT AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.