Coronavirus: An Italian startup has developed a 3D-printed valve for lung ventilators?

There are 14 people working in the state company Isinnova.

A hospital in northern Italy was facing a shortage of valves for artificial lung ventilators. 3D printing startup Isinnova produced a batch of valves within hours.

In the intensive care units of the municipality of Kyari, near the city of Brescia, there are 250 patients infected with coronavirus. The commune is located between Brescia and Bergamo, the first and second in terms of number of infected in Lombardy, one of the most affected Italian provinces. A few days ago, the community hospital ran out of oxygen valves, which are used to connect patients to artificial lung ventilators. The valves are designed to last only eight hours and are quickly running out.

Oxygen venturi valves – a rather complex shape for a 3D printer, emphasized in Isinnova. Nuncia Vallini, a journalist for the Giornale di Brescia, learned of the component shortage. She contacted businessman Massimo Temporelli and the director of the start-up company Isinnova, Christian Fracassi. “We were told that the hospital needed valves. They are called Venturi valves, and now they are impossible to find. Production cannot keep up with demand,” Fracassi said in an interview with Reuters. Frakassi and engineer Alessandro Romaioli went to the hospital for a sample and returned three hours later with a prototype. “It was tested on a patient, we were told that everything was fine, we went back to the office and started printing valves,” said the BBC’s Alessandro Romaioli.

It takes about an hour to produce a valve. Isinnova contacted Lonati, a company also involved in 3D printing, and together they were able to produce a batch of 100 valves within a day. According to Tempporelli, the valve costs only one euro, which is much cheaper than the original ones, which are also currently unavailable.

Meanwhile, Christian Fracassi was contacted by another hospital that had run out of these valves. “We haven’t slept in two days,” he says. “We’re trying to save lives.”

Now Isinnova, in collaboration with several 3D printing companies, is ready to provide free valves to hospitals in the region.