KSUM part of global project on affordable ventilator

KOCHI: A consortium with Sinergia Media Labs (simelabs) under the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) has tied up with a US-based not-for-profit organisation to launch an affordable ventilator, aiming to strengthen the global fight against Covid-19.Located in SmartCity, Kochi, Sinergia, along with Ionics3DP (Chennai) and Aruvii (Singapore), has tied up with the Project Prana Foundation of Massachusetts, US to operationalise the individualised system for augmenting ventilator capacity which enables patient-specific therapy in several nations the world over. The three-firm consortium has completed functional prototypes of their designs for BVM-based emergency resuscitator INDVENTR-100, besides INDVENTR-200.

The low-cost emergency device is capable of ventilating two patients simultaneously. The innovative system, with a Prana-developed solution called iSAVE, won validity recently, as per a publication in top weekly journal ‘Science Translational Medicine’.

“INDVENTR-100 is priced low. As an ambu bag-based respirator, it offers multiple ventilation schemes,” said Sinergia CEO Derrick Sebastian, revealing that the device, which works in mandatory as well as spontaneous modes, is based on a design by MIT. On the other hand, INVENTR-200 goes by a pneumatic blower-based design. It is rich in features, he adds.

Silji Abraham, an advisor of the IndVentr consortium, describes iSAVE as a carefully designed and thoroughly tested ventilator-sharing platform. “It can quickly scale up the ventilator infrastructure around the world which is currently facing heavy challenge because of the epidemic,” he said.

According to actor-producer Prakash Bare, project head at IndVentr, “This frugal solution costs less than Rs 20,000. It augments perfectly the solution space we have been focusing on.”Project Prana Foundation president Shriya Srinivasan said the consortium will offer both low-cost ventilators and multiplexing systems to markets in India and neighbouring countries.