Ansys, a renowned global engineering simulation company of Pennsylvania, entered into a Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR) agreement with an IIT Kanpur led consortium to assist in the development of NOCCA V110 ventilators to fight the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
Under the supervision of the IIT Kanpur consortium, NOCCA Robotics Private limited, an IITK incubated start-up, is developing indigenized rapidly scalable, low-cost invasive ventilators with the aim of promoting healthcare, including preventive health care.
Ansys is the first company who has joined forces with the IITK consortium and FIRST, the section 8 company of the Institute that oversees incubation activities of IIT Kanpur, to speed up the development of these ventilators.
Engineers at NOCCA Robotics Pvt. Ltd, have prototypes of a portable machine ready. They are being tested on artificial lungs, a prosthetic device that provides oxygen and removes carbon dioxide from the blood. The machines that can be tested on patients will be out in a matter of days.
Once the beta prototype is out, the team targets to produce 30,000 units by May 2020. As a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, Ansys has come forward by offering a dedicated grant to the project. The grant provided by Ansys will be utilized for procuring materials, testing, trials and other expenses.
Professor Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT Kanpur, said, “We are very happy to have Ansys on board with us for the development of this indigenous, low-cost ventilator. With their significant funding and technical support to NOCCA Robotics, we are one step closer to bringing this critical device to our healthcare providers. Our gratitude to Ansys for their generous gesture.”
Speaking about the CSR agreement, Rafiq Somani, Area Vice President – India and South Asia Pacific, Ansys, said, “Amidst COVID-19, the global pandemic that we are all facing today, one thing that is constantly worrying the government and the hospitals is ventilator shortage. Our relationship with IITs go a long way and when we were approached to support IIT-Kanpur’s start-up in developing an extremely affordable, reliable and completely indigenous invasive ventilator, we were more than happy to help with it. Ansys has always been committed towards Industry-Academia collaborations and we are in this fight together. We hope that our support by being the first company to back the start-up will help in quickly bringing out the Nocca V110 ventilators to serve humanity.”
Nocca Robotics and IIT Kanpur have created a consortium of biomedical engineers, doctors, research and development leaders, supply chain and MedTech businesses to harness their expertise and take the design from the idea to the actual product. The entire project is being coordinated by Prof. Amitabha Bandyopadhyay, Professor-in-Charge, Start-up Innovation and Incubation Centre (SIIC), IIT Kanpur.
Nocca V110 is a modular, power efficient invasive ventilator that operates in a pressure-controlled mode and the IOT enabled design allows multiple ventilators to be controlled remotely.
=>G.P. VARMA
