Covid-19: OxVent’s rapidly built ventilator moves to the testing stage

OxVent received UK government go-ahead on April 1 to move to the testing phase, and since then team members have been based at Smith+Nephew to develop the academic prototype into a safe, reliable and manufacturable product that can be approved by MHRA.

If the prototype passes the required safety tests, it will move into production at Smith+Nephew then deployed in the NHS.

The OxVent team came together in March 2020 to develop the prototype following the UK government’s callout for rapidly deployable ventilator designs, in response to the Coronavirus pandemic and a forecasted acute shortage of ventilators.

OxVent comprises multidisciplinary engineers, scientists, clinicians and manufacturers who are working from pre-existing technology in an open source environment to ensure fast turnaround times and expedited adoption. This approach integrates into NHS systems and components as efficiently as possible so that more patients can be treated faster. 

The team is led by Oxford Professors Andrew Farmery, Mark Thompson, Tim Denison, Paul Goulart and Alfonso Castrejon-Pita and DPhil student Rob Staruch and King’s College London’s Prof Sebastien Ourselin and Dr Federico Formenti. 

Professor Mark Thompson, said: “In less than two weeks the students, researchers and academics driving this project brainstormed a prototype, developed into a highly-structured efficient and effective team and won Government backing. Collaboration is in our DNA and I am so proud of the team and the amazing support from our universities.”