Dyson will no longer be supplying ventilators to the NHS to treat coronavirus patients after being told by the government their services were no longer required.
The company’s founder, Sir James Dyson, said the company had already spent around £20m on the project but would not be seeking any public money to cover its costs, after being asked to stand down.
In total, 10,000 were ordered by the government last month, but the billionaire founder told the Daily Telegraph that the government had done a U-turn.
In an email to staff, Sir James Dyson said his company had designed the "CoVent" at the request of Boris Johnson and promised to donate 5,000 to the international relief effort.
He said teams of engineers had been working solidly on the design since receiving the call from the Prime Minister in March.
But the firm was still waiting for the design to receive approval from regulators.
He wrote at the time: "We have received an initial order of 10,000 units from the UK Government, which we will supply on an open-book basis.
"We are also looking at ways of making it available internationally."
“[Our] people welcomed the government’s challenge,” said Sir James, after the Daily Telegraph reported his company had been told to stand down.
“Mercifully they are not required, but we don’t regret our contribution to the national effort for one moment. I have some hope that our ventilator we may yet help the response in other countries, but that requires further time and investigation.
“The team have worked 24/7 to design and manufacture a sophisticated ventilator in a short timeframe – I hope they can spend this weekend with their families who will not have seen them for weeks.”
The government had commissioned several companies to supply 10,000 brand new ventilators each, awarding contracts to Dyson, defence company Babcock and a Cambridge-based group called Sagentia, a subsidiary of Science Group.
But none of the companies has so far received regulatory approval for new devices, the Guardian reports.
The only group to have secured regulatory approval and supplied ventilators to the NHS in significant numbers is Ventilator Challenge UK, a group of manufacturers that focused on scaling up production of proven devices
When the ventilators were initially ordered, Health Minister Edward Argar suggested the 10,000 were additional to 16,000 which the government had either in place, or on order for the future.
Experts have warned the nation needs several tens of thousands of ventilators to avoid people who are struggling to breathe from Covid-19 being denied support.
Previously Health Secretary Matt Hancock had claimed the country had 12,000 ventilators.
But Mr Argar admitted this was a mix-up - it had actually meant 8,000 in place and, at the time, 4,000 ordered.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson told the Guardian: “A number of devices are […] going through the necessary tests for regulatory approval. No decisions have been made on those devices and we will provide an update in due course.”
The UK coronavirus death toll surpassed 19,000 yesterday, after 776 more fatalities were reported.
