Celestica to make 7,500 ventilators for Starfish Medical

TORONTO – Celestica Inc. has been contracted to build 7,500 ventilators in Newmarket, Ont., for Starfish Medical Inc.

Financial terms of the contract weren’t announced.

Celestica is a Toronto-based manufacturer of electronic equipment for a variety of industries including health care, aerospace and information technology.

Starfish, based in Victoria, BC, designs medical devices and provides contract manufacturing. The firm is one of several companies that are part of the federal government’s plan to produce up to 30,000 medical ventilators that can be used to treat severe symptoms of COVID-19.

Celestica will begin manufacturing the ventilators in May and intends to deliver them on behalf of StarFish to Health Canada for distribution early in the fourth quarter.

“We’re working on a very short timetable, and Celestica’s expertise and capabilities across the entire product development cycle will ensure we can meet the deadline and deliver products of the highest quality,” said John Walmsley, executive vice-president of strategic relationships at StarFish Medical.

Canadian hospitals had an estimated 5,000 ventilators at the outset of the COVID outbreak in mid-March, when public health measures were put in place to limit the disease’s impact.