Engineers 3D-print patented valves for free to save coronavirus patients in Italy - National | Globalnews.ca
▻https://globalnews.ca/news/6695286/coronavirus-italy-3d-print-valves
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An engineering company in Italy is saving lives and risking a future lawsuit by 3D-printing an expensive — and patented — medical valve needed to treat victims of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The valves are used to connect COVID-19 patients to breathing machines at a hospital in Brescia, a city in northern Italy where the coronavirus outbreak has been most severe. However, the patented valves cost thousands of dollars and they must be changed out and discarded every eight hours to keep patients alive, according to Business Insider.
The hospital simply couldn’t keep up with the demand, so a local reporter and a physicist put the hospital in touch with Isinnova, a tech start-up that specializes in 3D-printing.
Isinnova chief executive Cristian Fracassi says he reverse-engineered and 3D-printed the part because the “ordinary” supply chain couldn’t keep up with the hospital’s extraordinary demand. Each part cost about 1 euro (about CAD$1.60) worth of materials to print, but Fracassi says his firm cranked out about 100 valves for free.
“There were people in danger of life and we acted,” Fracassi wrote on Facebook. “Period.”
Via @monolecte.
#impression_3D #brevet #propriété_intellectuelle #coronavirus