With the number of coronavirus infections continuing to ramp up each day, Richard Bransons California-based rocket company Virgin Orbit joined forces with medical researchers and developed a ventilator device that the company plans to mass-produce and ship to hospitals around the United States to battle the coronavirus.

[It is] a very, very simple and robust design that we can get out to the people who are in the most need, and the hospitals that are in the most need, of devices like these very, very quickly, Virgin Orbits ventilator project leader Kevin Zagorski said. Zagorski manages the companys advanced manufacturing of propulsion systems, meaning that he typically spends his day building rocket engines.

Virgin Orbits devicecompresses medical ambu bags, which assists patients with COVID-19 to help them breathe.Ventilators deliver air to the lungs through a pump that is placed in the windpipe but there is currently a dearth of devices availin the U.S.While Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart stated in a video that the company is working with the Food and Drug Administration on approval, he stated that the company is trying to get a helpful unit into hospital as soon as possible.

Bransons company does not have an exact timeline for when FDA approval could come, but Virgin Orbit is wishful that the approval process will expeditious, as the ventilator devices fall under the FDAs Emergency Use Authorization authority, which essentially allows the FDA to speed up limited approval for devices during a crisis.

Virgin Orbit is not the first company to begin producing ventilators and aid the fight against the coronavirus. General Motors has beenin the news recently for its decision to repurpose parts of two U.S. automotive factories under the Defense Production Act, to produce health-care supplies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

GMs efforts, which have been both criticized and lauded byPresident Trump lately, include producing FDA-cleared Level 1 surgical masks at a manufacturing facility in Warren, Michigan, and Ventec VOCSN critical care ventilators at a components plant in Kokomo, Indiana.

Supporters of Virgin Orbit can consider ETFs like theProcure Space ETF (UFO), which holds Virgin Galactic and is poised to take advantage of the space travel revolution.

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Branson's Virgin Orbit Joins The Fight Against The Coronavirus - ETF Trends