News Nissan begins respirator production in Barcelona Plant

Barcelona, Spain (17 April, 2020) – Hospital de Sant Pau, the engineering company QEV Technologies, along with Nissan and the technology centre Eurecat have developed the Q-Vent respirator, to be used in hospitals throughout the world.

The accessible, flexible and reliable design meets international specifications, meaning it can be supplied to developing countries in the fight against COVID-19.

The Q-Vent has already been authorised by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) and has been tested in the facilities of the Research Institute of the Hospital de Sant Pau - IIB Sant Pau (Barcelona) with excellent results. The first 20 units will be donated to the local health authority CatSalut for use in ICUs and ongoing clinical study to optimize the equipment.

"Since the beginning of the epidemic, we assumed the challenge of developing a low-cost portable system that could reach all corners of the world, especially those emerging countries where the COVID-19 was going to cause a great damage and where the majority of the patients were not going to have access to respirators. And thanks to everyone's effort and desire, this has been possible", explains Miguel Valldecabres, CEO at QEV Technologies.

"From Sant Pau we support this initiative to fight against COVID-19. We believe it is necessary to help emerging countries that have lower economic capacities than we have in Europe and that's why we support the QEV Technologies project to make this respirator useful in ICUs anywhere in the world", confirms Dr. José M. Guerra, scientific coordinator of the project, doctor of the Arrhythmia Unit of the Hospital de Sant Pau and Coordinator of the Research Group in Clinical and Translational Cardiology, of the Research Institute of this centre.

Manufacturing the Q-Vent will begin this week at Nissan Barcelona Plant's Powertrain Plant, with a capacity of 180 units per day, depending on orders.

Eurecat has been in charge of advising on the design of components and the production of some of them, as well as managing the process for the inclusion of hospitals in the clinical study.