COVID-19 Rapid Response Innovation Project
Improve Europe’s capacity to produce personal protective equipment
The challenge
The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 is creating sanitary challenges like never seen before. Until there is a vaccine or effective treatment, the use of masks and other types of personal protective equipment (PPE), is the best way to limit the spread of the virus circulation. The challenge is to maintain the supply of masks, which are often not made for reuse, as well as other PPE, such as face shields.
Additive Manufacturing, leveraging technologies such as 3D printing, could help to meet the demand for masks and other equipment, particularly in the case of reusable masks. However, we are faced with stark disparities across Europe in the standards and varieties of PPE and the coordination of regulatory certification.
The solution
A group of partners will work to design, develop and validate reusable masks that comply with EU specifications, making that design available for replication around Europe. The masks will meet quality standards in areas such as ergonomics, breathability and comfortable skin contact. The partners will also seek to design face shields that meet EU standards. The PPE created through this project will not receive a proprietary patent, and the digital designs will be shared widely, so that local Additive Manufacturers all over Europe can engage in production of high quality, reusable masks and face shields.
Expected impact
The immediate aims of the project are to reduce the pressure of the procurement of PPE by ensuring a greater supply of products that meet EU standards are widely available. Increased production will also reduce dependence on suppliers from outside Europe, as well as the use of PPE that does not meet European quality standards. Involving Additive Manufacturing suppliers means the current demand can be met without the need to scale up a new, dedicated industry, and it establishes a network of suppliers who can be called on in other emergencies.
All Partners
EIT Health members
- Fundació Privada per la Recerca i la Docència Sant Joan de Déu
- University of Barcelona
Linked third party
- Hospital Sant Joan de Déu
External partners
- Fundacion CIM
- Barcelona Three Dimensional Printers SL
Members
CLC/InnoStars: Spain
Partner classification: Research
Sant Joan de Déu Research Foundation was created in 2002 to provide a framework for the research activity which is carried out in the biomedical and social spheres at Sant Joan de Déu Maternal and Children's Hospital in Esplugues, at Sant Joan de Déu Healthcare Park in Sant Boi de Llobregat, and in other healthcare centres of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God – Aragon-San Rafael Province.
Fundació Privada per la Recerca i la Docència Sant Joan de Déu
Fundació Privada per la Recerca i la Docència Sant Joan de Déu, Carrer de Santa Rosa, 39, 08950 L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
Key Activities in Business Creation
Technology Transfer, Testing & Validation
Key Activities in Education
Medical faculties, Healthcare professional education/training
CLC/InnoStars: Spain
Partner classification: Academic, Education, Research
The University of Barcelona is the most intensive university in research in Spain. Our university has a great capacity for innovation in various fields, of which the health sector stands out both due to the amount and the quality of the outcomes produced by faculties such as the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the Faculty of Pharmacy and Nutrition or the Faculty of Psychology. Our activity within the EIT Health projects is often enriched and sometimes dominated by the technology and/or knowledge created in the Faculties of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science or even Fine Arts. We have also several Research Institutes that merge multidisciplinary teams working on topics as diverse as Neuroscience, Complex systems, Biomedicine, etc. as well as a couple of Technology Transfer Institutes such as CREATIO https://www.ub.edu/creatio/en/, the first Academic Center for the Production and Validation of Advanced Therapies in Spain, and Farmatec http://www.ub.edu/sdm/in_index.htm, a Service of Development of Medicines under GMP regulation
University of Barcelona
University of Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585, 08007 Barcelona, España
Key Activities in Research and Developement
https://web.ub.edu/en/research
Key Activities in Corporate Innovation
https://web.ub.edu/en/the-university
Key Activities in Business Creation
https://startub.ub.edu/en/community/incubated-companies/
Key Activities in Education
https://web.ub.edu/en/learn