BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A small company in Melbourne could play a big role in helping patients recover from coronavirus.

A ventilator made by Airon Corporation will soon be mass-produced by Ford, and distributed by GE Healthcare. The company typically makes more than 50 ventilators a month. Now, it is licensing the design so Ford can produce 50,000 by July.

“We were introduced to GE as a small portable ventilator and GE introduced us to Ford, and so the three of us have joined in this collaboration,” said Pamela Fry, vice president of Airon Corporation.

The design of the ventilator traces back about 20 years to the University of Florida and has a “simplicity of it in design” Fry said.

“So many of the electronic care ventilators have a lot of electronic parts,” she said. “Our ventilator is totally pneumatic; it runs only on an oxygen source.”

Work is expected to star around April 20 in Michigan.

Fry said the company has already increased production and is trying to make 20 ventilators a day, but the help of some big names will ensure thousands more be built soon and give the local company a role in helping people during a global pandemic.

Fry said the company is excited to grow, and is proud of the work it is doing.

“We really look to helping patients every day so now, in this crisis, we just have a larger population of people that we need to be able to reach out to,” she said.

Source: WFTV9