The Stavrakis’ family, Greek-American owners of ADCOR Industries in Baltimore roll out ventilator prototype to combat Covid-19
ADCOR Industries, located in Greektown Baltimore, owned and operated by Jimmy and Antonia Stavrakis has developed a lightweight, portable machine to give the world in its fight against Covid-19, ANASA, in Greek meaning “breathe”.
ADCOR, an engineering and manufacturing facility, not only provides missile components and critical parts to the aerospace, electronic and telecommunication sectors but also have assembled various components for the pharmaceutical and medical field in the past, as well. In the midst of the pandemic, Jimmy Stavrakis created a prototype in nine days that can help meet the growing demand and short supply of breathing aids.
As he said “There’s a shortage of ventilators right now and this horrific pandemic is literally taking the breath away from countless people and causing their deaths. Therefore we automated the simple action of pumping air into a patient, where the guts of our ventilator are the bags carried by every EMS crew in the country, and just added the mechanics to squeeze it and the electronics to make it work. But also, we made it so as to be able to introduce oxygen into the mask as well as premix the oxygen just at the right level for the patient.”
With regular ventilators costing as much as $75,000 and while they do more, they’re nowhere near as affordable especially in this time of crisis. ADCOR’s invention could cost just a few thousand dollars and production could begin immediately and at full capacity can produce hundreds a day.
Government officials and medical experts have been in and out of the manufacturing site the last couple of days to view and test the prototype and give recommendations. One such expert from the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine from the University of Maryland Medical Center, said the rugged design with aircraft-grade aluminum has very attractive features, such as generic disposable parts that come in contact with patients, to fill the niche as a portable emergency ventilator during the surge from the highly contagious Covid-19 pandemic and is also easy to use by novice providers and not just critical or respiratory units. Medical experts from Johns Hopkins as well have been offering advice and recommendations throughout the week to help make a precision tuned finished product.
The invention awaits federal approval since it’s a medical device but it is very likely to get fast tracked from the FDA so production can begin as early as next day.
“The most important payback for us would be the smiles of families whose loved ones we have helped save. We will feel great that we will have given people the opportunity to live,” said ADCOR’s president, Antonia Stavrakis.
Being on-site the last few days, covering this developing story, the most profound feeling I got, was a sense of one family trying to help another family avoid the feeling of a loss, as all hands on deck ranged from Jimmy and Antonia’s daughters, Maria and Katerina printing and filing all necessary paperwork for FDA approval to their son, Kosta also an engineering college student shadowing his father and the VP Michael Hyatt. It is no wonder, though, that this a family effort, as one of their own, their third daughter, Gia is an eyewitness to the havoc this pandemic is reaping, as she is one of the frontline heroes at Johns Hopkins Hospital; thus, driving home the importance of keeping everyone healthy and safe in these difficult times. Kudos to all of them on such a quick response to meet such a vital need as air and provide a “breather” in the fight during this raging pandemic that has taken so many lives worldwide.
