In record time, and with the coordination of hundreds of people, the “Un Respiro para Chile” initiative provided support to Chilean entrepreneurs who developed a top-of-the-line mechanical ventilator to face the current health emergency.
15 “Neyün” mechanical ventilation devices, developed in Chile by DTS, ENAER and FAMAE, were donated to the public health network, thanks to the support of Corfo and “Un Respiro para Chile”, an initiative promoted by SOFOFA Hub, SiEmpre, and the Ministry of Science.
The ventilators, designed and developed by local entrepreneurs and innovators, were delivered to the Barros Luco Hospital, where the health staff will begin its technical training to operate them, to support the demand of one of the Metropolitan Region’s most important health centers.
“Neyün” is the mechanical ventilator model created by Chilean companies DTS, ENAER and FAMAE, which successfully navigated all -pre clinical and clinical- technical validation processes during its development stage, and was awarded resources for its commercial scaling.
“With this valuable contribution to the Barros Luco hospital, there are already 42 emergency ventilator devices from various platforms, designed, manufactured and validated in Chile, that have been delivered to different hospitals to support our health system in the face of this emergency. Thanks to the “Un Respiro para Chile” initiative, we were able to coordinate the national innovation community, as well as the public, academic, and productive sectors, to put local capacities at the service of those who today urgently need this equipment” said Andrés Couve, Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation.
“Today we are proud of the results of the various projects that were part of this program, which has been made possible thanks to a public-private collaboration, and we highlight the donation that DTS has made to the Barros Luco Hospital, demonstrating once again that Chileans can generate innovative solutions to tackle major challenges, such as the ones we are currently facing,” said Pablo Terrazas, Executive Vice Chairman of Corfo.
SOFOFA Hub’s Executive Director, Alan Garcia, highlighted that “the fact that the private sector has been 100% involved in this process, not only from an economic standpoint, but also as articulators of the “Un Respiro para Chile” initiative, enabled us to reach a quality result in record time and today, in the midst of this contingency, we are making a tangible contribution to various hospitals of Chile’s Public Health Network”.
Regarding the milestone of the donation of the Neyün ventilators to the Barros Luco Hospital, Eduardo Aedo, DTS’s general manager, explained that “the fact that they can be used in this second phase of the pandemic, aside from making us proud, allows us to validate these equipment in the field, working jointly with a hospital and —most importantly—— achieving our goal of saving lives. It was a high delivery project, that demanded considerable coordination and enthusiasm, and we are very happy that the ventilators are starting to be used. From now on, we are available to help meet the country’s demands.”
Other projects have been developed, simultaneously to the donations of these ventilators, led by the teams of Pontificia Universidad Católica and by the team formed in Valdivia by the Unmanned-Allware companies, which are taking the corresponding steps to donate their devices.