JFD unveils new ventilator system to support global battle against COVID-19

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JFD, a world leader in breathing apparatus, life support equipment and hyperbaric medical equipment to support life-critical applications and part of James Fisher and Sons plc, today announced that it will bring to market a new patient ventilator system to support global health systems in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.

JFD has responded to the UK Government’s Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System call to manufacturers, to support the provision of essential medical equipment to the front-line NHS.

The InVicto™ ventilator is more advanced than CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) systems; it has been fully developed, including full in-house testing, and is ready for launch into full scale production and global distribution. The InVicto™ system can support global healthcare services by reducing pressure on intensive care unit (ICU) facilities, helping to save lives as the virus approaches its peak in many countries.

JFD has engineered the InVicto™ ventilator system, with extensive testing conducted in the JFD breathing laboratories.

The InVicto™ is suitable for deployment in many scenarios due to its flexible design. This could be in a pre-critical temporary ward or care home, providing an enhanced breathing ventilation aid that offers an improvement over CPAP treatment. The system extends to full hospital ward capability providing full ventilation support with patient monitoring, breathing gas and O2 management and alarms.

JFD has designed the system with a specific focus on reducing the usage of O2. For InVicto™, it has applied its world leading expertise in breathing gas reclaim systems for the offshore diving industry. InVicto™ significantly reduces the use of O2 compared with other ventilators available on the market. Due to exceptional demand and logistical challenges in supply driven by the onset of the COVID Pandemic, JFD considered that O2 could likely become an increasingly scarce resource to provide at scale. Therefore, the design philosophy was to also produce a ventilator which operates with minimal O2 consumption.

The InVicto™ ventilator is a highly flexible, modular ventilator that is safe, efficient and can be manufactured and deployed rapidly across the globe to hospitals and care facilities.

At the heart of the InVicto™ device is a solid form mechanical logic flow device. This is lightweight and is powered by the breathing gas supply. It has no electrical or moving parts and no external power requirements. This enhances reliability and means that it can be quickly deployed and redeployed to where it is needed most and used in continuous 24/7 operation for long periods.

Giovanni Corbetta, Managing Director, JFD, said:

“Since the global outbreak of COVID-19, JFD has been working around the clock, utilising all our experience in developing breathing apparatus and life support equipment to design the best possible solution for patients, doctors and healthcare authorities around the world. As well as basing our design on a proven medical ventilator device, a key part of this project has been to take into account the likely pressures on O2 supply. Designing a ventilator with O2 consumption in mind enabled us to apply our wide range of skills in gas management and highly precise patient monitoring, which we bring from our diving systems and medical hyperbaric rescue capabilities.

“Our core purpose as a company is to protect lives. So, we are delighted that we have been able to use and transfer some of our experience into helping and hopefully alleviating some of the pressure that all the amazing health workers are under on the front line in battling this COVID-19 pandemic.”

JFD is in constant contact with all necessary stakeholders required to bring the InVicto™ ventilator to the global market. This includes the medical community, as well as relevant certification and government bodies.

Professor Philip B James MB ChB, PhD, DIH, FFOM, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Dundee, said:

“The modular design of JFD’s ventilator provides real flexibility from a simple approach to further intervention depending on the severity of each patient. Critically, JFD has manufactured its product based on an existing ventilator design, which was proven and qualified for medical use in hyperbaric chambers. Fundamentally, we know that it works and can make an immense difference to patients that are suffering from COVID-19.”

The basic design of the ventilator that InVicto™ is based upon has been validated and used successfully for many years in hospitals around the world for treating critically ill patients (for example with extensive burns or serious trauma) in a 100% O2 environment in hyperbaric chambers. Leveraging this pedigree and the ventilator’s innovative capabilities, JFD has updated the system with modern monitoring technologies and numerical analysis, ensuring the new ventilator meets all required operational standards, specifically with treatment of COVID-19 in mind.

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