The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced five new contracts for ventilator production rated under the Defense Production Act (DPA), to General Electric, Hill-Rom, Medtronic, ResMed, and Vyaire, as well as two other contracts for ventilator production, to Hamilton and Zoll.
In total, combined with contracts with General Motors and Philips rated under the DPA earlier this week, HHS has finalized contracts to supply 6,190 ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile by May 8 and 29,510 by June 1.
The seven new ventilator contracts announced by HHS this month will provide a total of 137,431 ventilators by the end of 2020.
The rating of the five contracts under the DPA follows President Donald Trump's direction to HHS Secretary Alex Azar to invoke the Act with regard to General Electric, Hill-Rom, ResMed, Medtronic, and Vyaire on April 2.
In a statement, Azar said, "President Trump and HHS's use of the DPA is getting private manufacturers what they need to ramp up ventilator production rapidly. We are grateful to the patriotic Americans at companies working around the clock and retooling factories to increase ventilator production. The thousands of ventilators delivered to the Strategic National Stockpile starting this month, continuing through the spring and summer, will mean we have more capacity to respond to the pandemic as it evolves. HHS and FEMA deployment of ventilators from the stockpile have helped ensure that hospitals in states such as New York have not run out of ventilator capacity while working to save lives."
A look at the contracts:
- General Electric's contract, at a price of $64.1 million, is for 2,410 ventilators produced by June 29, with 112 by May 4 and 736 by June 1.
- Hamilton's contract, at a price of $552 million, is for 14,115 ventilators produced by July 3, with 850 by May 8 and 4,404 by May 22.
- Hill-Rom's contract, at a price of $20.1 million, is for 3,400 ventilators produced by July 13, with 400 by June 1.
- Medtronic's contract, at a price of $9.1 million, is for 1,056 ventilators to be produced by June 22, with 200 by May 4 and 678 by June 1.
- ResMed's contract, at a price of $31.98 million, is for 2,550 ventilators produced by July 13, with 400 by May 4 and 1,150 by June 1.
- Vyaire's contract, at a price of $407.9 million, is for 22,000 ventilators produced by June 29, with 1,200 ventilators by May 4 and 9,100 by June 1.
- Zoll's contract, at a price of $350.1 million, is for 18,900 ventilators produced by July 3, with 1,010 by May 4 and 4,410 by June 1.
