The company says the latest version of its prototype has already been tested by doctors at Vilnius and Kaunas clinics, and following the successful completion of the interim tests, an application for the lung ventilator's telemedicine system patent has been filed.
"Based on preliminary estimates of our specialists, we expect to have a production-ready device by 2024 as product certification alone takes up to 12 months," Tomas Zamaras, product manager at Teltonika Telemedic, said in a statement.
Teltonika started the project in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic led to a shortage of lung ventilators in hospitals. The company's experts developed the first lung ventilator prototype in a month and produced 100 of these devices for countries with the greatest demand.
However, to start serial production of these devices, Teltonika Telemedic had to obtain certification to ensure that the product meet all the requirements for medical devices.
Total investment into the project is estimated to have exceeded 1.5 million euros, but this amount will grow as the remaining work is carried out. Part of the investment will be covered by a 0.99 million euro grant from Lithuania's Innovation Agency.