GM make ventilators? Why not order BD, Stryker, S&N or other med companies? | Hacker News Reader

GM make ventilators? Why not order BD, Stryker, S&N or other med companies?

19 pointsadelHBN9 comments

Was this just a ploy to get union workers at GM their jobs back? I don't understand this. GM doesn't know the first thing about making a med device - procedures, clean rooms, FDA, etc. It will take too long for GM to understand how to do this.

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Might be a good time to retell the story of how the US tried to stockpile ventilators a decade ago As Project Aurora, but were stalled and eventually made zero ventilators thanks to a company called Covidien (actual company name, not an April fools joke).

Covidien bought the company that was to make the cheaper ventilators for stockpile and then stalled and finally cancelled the project. Covidien incidentally already made a much more expensive ventilator.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/sns-nyt-us-failed...

BD no longer makes ventilators. Stryker never did, they make mostly O.R. and hospital kit, tools and accessories. No idea who S&N is.

These are the major global manufacturers:

- Philips Healthcare (Netherlands)

- Vyaire Medical (US) formerly Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD - US)

- Getinge (Sweden)

- Dräger (Germany)

- Smiths Group (UK)

- Hamilton Medical (Switzerland)

- GE Healthcare (US)

- Air Liquide (France)

- Zoll Medical (US)

- Allied Healthcare Products (US)

- Airon Mindray (China)

- Schiller (Switzerland)

- Löwenstein Medical (Germany)

- Medtronic (Ireland after corporate inversion from US)

Through virtue of working with them once, S&N is Smith & Nephew.

To my knowledge they do joint implants, wound care and scoped tools but not ventilators.

In Australia we are having Resmed make ventilators! So that's a bit more on brand than a car company!

I had the same take. The medical device industry and auto manufacturing are very different industries.

I can only assume it came down to volume. GM has the space and the machines for volume manufacturing. The medical device companies don’t.

GM also, unfortunately, has been hammered on demand for their core business - vehicles - right now. They have surplus manufacturing space and human resources and that may continue for anywhere from a few months to the rest of this year (before perhaps slowly recovering from late 2020 through 2021). It fits quite well in terms of context. The medtech companies need to keep their resources focused on producing medical devices, they are unlikely to have the vast manufacturing capability slack that GM is seeing (some of them may have a bit of increased slack as we turn down elective procedures, delay equipment purchases). The ideal is perhaps to have GM (Ford, etc) working with such companies who can help guide them properly in the medtech manufacturing space, utilizing the best of what both bring to the table. Ford is working with GE, GM is working with Ventec.

An interesting Bloomberg article on it:

http://archive.is/SLUlj

Here is the key response to the parent's questions:

"They asked Barra’s team what they needed to make ventilators. GM needed a ventilator-making partner with an established product and a medical sales force."

"For his part, Ventec CEO Chris Kiple said that he needed a partner with mass-manufacturing expertise, factories and a workforce to produce on a huge scale to help cities like New York as patients overwhelm hospitals."

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/32726/how-ford-will-use-f-150-...

Survival. GM won't be able to sell new cars for at least 2 months.

They won’t even start manufacturing until April 20.

Taxpayers lost $11 billion bailing out GM around 2009.

Trump showed up to collect what the people were owed.

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