Advancements in the collaborative efforts of three start-ups and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in developing three emergency care ventilation solutions has brought something to cheer amidst a still raging pandemic and a resultant acute shortage of ventilators felt across the world, especially in India.
IndVentr, a consortium of three startups – Sinergia Media Labs and Ionics 3DP based in Kochi, and Aruvii based in Singapore – and Prana Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation which grew out of biomedical engineering efforts at MIT and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital have been working on low-cost emergency ventilators and multiplexing systems to cater to the challenges of the fast evolving situation.
iSave, an innovative and frugal ventilator sharing platform developed by Prana Foundation facilitates ventilation of two subjects simultaneously the validation of which was recently published in Science Translational Medicine. Priced at ₹20,000, it can quickly scale up the ventilator infrastructure around the world, which is now under severe stress.
“We have also completed the functional prototypes of INADVENT-100, which is a time-tested BVM-based manual emergency resuscitator, which we are automating with added features and will be priced in the region of ₹50,000-₹60,000,” said actor Prakash Bare, who heads the project at IndVentr.
INADVENT-200 is a more advanced and feature-rich ventilator with pneumatic design and priced at ₹1.50 lakh, will be the costliest of the three solutions. “This will offer 90% of the functionalities of the far costlier existing ventilators in the market but at 10% the cost. It will have far less components unlike its market compatriots and hence will be much less complicated,” said Mr. Bare.
He said that testing and validation of the devices remained a big challenge with testing agencies very rare in the country, forcing developers to fall back mostly on hospitals, doctors and State medical boards. “We realise that it is going to be a long, challenging journey before the solutions are made available,” said Mr. Bare.
The project is being supported by advisers, contributors, and others from India, Singapore, the U.S. and other parts of the world. Among the experts constituting the advisory board of IndVentr include Prahlad Vadakkepat, Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, who specialises in frugal innovations; Silji Abraham, Chief Digital and Transformation Officer at West Pharmaceutical Services; and Bengaluru-based industry veteran, and startup consultant Ramamurthy Pachaiyappan.