The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has terminated the remainder of its April 2020 contract with Philips for 43,000 EV300 ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile, according to the company. Philips reported that it has completed the delivery of 12,300 devices but will not supply the remaining 30,700 ventilators, as directed by HHS.
The Philips ventilator contract was part of a total $2.9 Billion in contracts by HHS with several manufacturers for the production and delivery of a total of more than 156,000 ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile by the end of August 2020, and a total of more than 187,000 ventilators by the end of the year.
From March 2020 onwards, Philips achieved a massive fourfold increase in ventilator production in just five months, adding production lines in the US as well as creating hundreds of new jobs. Employees in Philips’ factories in Western Pennsylvania and California have been working around the clock to produce these ventilators.
“To date, we have delivered on our commitments to HHS,” said Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips. “I am proud that with great urgency and under intense pressure, we achieved a fourfold ventilator production expansion with substantial investments: we hired hundreds of new colleagues for our factories in the US and called upon our supply chain partners to massively step up, all in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While we are disappointed in light of these vast efforts, we will adjust our plans and work with HHS to effectuate the partial termination of this contract.”
