NASA and SpaceX garnered big headlines when they sent astronauts to the ISS last week. But there's another NASA partnership -- involving a local startup -- that's poised to make a big difference here on the ground.
Beating out more than 100 other applicants, Fort Worth-based Designplex Biomedical, a medical device and software maker, was selected as one of eight manufacturers to produce a ventilator designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that’s specifically designed to treat Covid-19 patients.
Dallas-based electronic equipment maker ATRON Group was also selected.
“We have a fantastic team and our design and manufacturing experience in the cardiovascular space and pneumatic controllers can be directly applied to NASA’s COVID-19 ventilator,” said Designplex CEO Bob Benkowski in a prepared statement.
The project began at the JPL in February, after two engineers from different departments – with thoughts preoccupied about the spreading virus – had a chance meeting on a coffee break. The pair decided to use their engineering know-how to develop a ventilator to address a potential shortage, while also making it cost effective. They also wanted it to use parts that could be readily sourced, while not using parts that would disrupt the production of other types of ventilators.
After being tested at labs at UCLA and Mount Sinai in New York, the Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally, or VITAL, received an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA on April 30. Now, with the help of Designplex, VITALs are being produced across the country and shipped off to frontline health care workers.
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The VITAL uses one-seventh of the parts of typical ventilators, making it cheaper and more efficiently made. It’s also designed to be flexible, so that once in the field, hospitals can modify them as needed. It’s meant to ease the burden for hospitals, so that other ventilators can be reserved for the most severe patients.
The patent for VITAL is held by The Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships at Caltech and is being licensed out royalty-free.
“We won't know it's over until it's obvious we have beat it. No matter what happens, what we've shown through this project is a pathway to get important, time-sensitive work done,” said NASA Mechanical Systems Engineer David Van Buren in a prepared statement. “There will be another pandemic, and we're putting in place principles on how to attack them here."
In addition to producing the VITAL, Designplex Biomedical, a TechFW-backed company launched in 2015, has been making other PPE to help slow the spread of the virus. Recently, the company converted its break room into a face shield manufacturing line. It has already donated a number of those shields to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, with plans to donate more locally.
“We all talk. We all listen. We're all learning together,” said NASA Systems Engineer and operations lead on VITAL Stacey Boland in a prepared statement. “There's something beautiful and enabling in having a singular focus — there's a real unmet need and we're responding to it. There truly is a sense that we're all in this together.”
