Vingroup Starts to Produce Ventilators and Body Thermometers

HANOI, VIETNAM – Media OutReach – 4 April 2020 – In
response to the call of the General Secretary, the President, the Prime
Minister of Vietnam for the whole country’s participation in supporting
Covid-19 fight and under the drastic guidance of Deputy Prime Minister Trinh
Dinh Dung; on April 3, 2020, Vingroup announced its decision to produce
(invasive and non-invasive) ventilators of all types and body thermometers to
the domestic market.

 

At 12 PM on
March 30^th, 2020, the Group’s Leaders convened an emergency meeting
and requested all of its Research Institutes to stop daily tasks and focus on
finding and researching methods to produce ventilators. The units assigned the
main responsibility include Automobile R&D Institute 1, Automobile R&D
Institute 2, Mobile Device Research Institute, Smart Home Appliances R&D
Institute, Telecommunication Equipment R&D Institute, Smart Battery R&D
Institute, VinFast Automobile Factory and VinSmart Electronics Equipment
Factory. All Group Leaders and specialized departments are responsible for
coordination, support and are required to work directly via telephone on a
24/24 hour basis.

 

After just one
day and night, they found a lot of partners willing to share their design and
necessary information to start production. Soon after that, Vingroup entered
into a license agreement with US-based Medtronic to use their design for the
PB560 invasive ventilator and at the same time began researching a non-invasive
ventilator based on the community-shared design by Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT).

 

The supply is
divided into 2 categories. The former includes components that can be purchased
on the market and the later includes components which must be self-made by
Vingroup or made with Vingroup’s cooperation or support
to manufacturing partners because of their limited production capacity. “Vingroup has an advantage of having both automobile factory
and electronics factory which enable us to manufacture both large and
mechanical parts as well as rare and smaller parts at the same time such as
electronic boards. Our excellent design engineers are capable of transforming
the conceptual and 2D designs into detailed and complete designs required by
the manufacturers” – said Mrs. Le Thi Thu Thuy, Vice
Chairwoman of Vingroup.

 

It is expected
that the first batches of components for non-invasive ventilators will arrive
in two weeks and components for invasive ventilators will arrive in another two
weeks. The group claimed that with enough components, it can produce ventilators
in one day and transfer them to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of
Science and Technology for appraisal and quality tests before they are
distributed to health facilities nationwide.

 

The group has
successfully tested and produced their body thermometers with the component
cost at VND16 million, about ten times lower than other body thermometers on
the market. The group estimated the component cost for a non-invasive
ventilator at about VND22 million and for an invasive ventilator at VND160 million.

 

“We expect to
supply these devices to the Ministry of Health at their component cost. We won‘t include the
costs of transportation, labour, production and other costs as well as taxes
into the price. In the immediate future, we will give the MOH 5,000
non-invasive ventilators to timely treat COVID-19 patients” – said CEO of Vingroup Nguyen Viet
Quang. He added that “In addition, with the capacity of VinFast and VinSmart factories, the
group can produce up to 45,000 non-invasive ventilators and 10,000 invasive
ventilators per month and we can support other manufacturers around the world
by processing equipment for them, or providing part of the demand – any
specific quantity depending on their ability to supply components“.