Nocca Robotics plans to deploy 400 oxygen therapy devices for COVID-19 treatment by Sep 15

IIT-Kanpur incubated startup Nocca Robotics expects to deploy around 400 high flow oxygen therapy devices for treatment of COVID-19 patients by next month in India.

Indian Angel Network and CAWACH (Centre for Augmenting WAR with COVID-19 Health Crisis) – funded company is in discussion with three agencies in India to supply 351 units of high flow oxygen therapy (HFOT) devices, and has received partnership enquiries from Europe.

The company on Wednesday launched the product Noccarc H210 for COVID-19 patients, and its commercial sale will begin from September 1.

“Unlike ventilators, high flow oxygen therapy machines are not available everywhere in the globe. We want to ensure that the first installation of 300-400 machines is done in india, which we hope to do by September 15 after which we will go for exports full fledgedly,” Nocca Robotics CEO Nikhil Kurela told PTI.

The startup firm, which has developed low cost COVID-19 specialised ventilator, said the device is priced around Rs 2 lakh a unit, and it is 25-30 per cent cheaper compared to its competitors.

Kurela said that based on estimates from various sector experts, there is a requirement of around 30,000 HFOT devices.

The company has set up production capacity of 500 units a month but infrastructure is designed to cater up to 1,000 units.

“There are two factors for any production – manpower and infrastructure. Infrastructure that we have for production of 1,000 machines per month and manpower is for 500 machines. Our idea is whenever it is required to scale up production, we can do it in a matter of 15 days to a week’s time,” Kurela said.

He said the company is in discussion with 3 agencies with a minimum order size of 100 units each.

“We expect to sell really good numbers, around 1,000 units by October. We are getting requests from housing societies but we don’t want machines to remain unutilised. Our priority is to cater to public and private health facilities on priority basis,” the CEO said.

He also said that ventilator and HFNC developed by the company have been approved by German testing and certification body TUV.

The company is in final stages to start overseas supply of HFOT devices, it claimed.

“The mortality rate in the ventilator is high. Considering the number of patients, around 1 per cent of COVID-19 patient require ICU treatment and out of 0.22 per cent patient require ventilator. The remaining require high flow oxygen therapy to control the dip in oxygen level. We have tried to solve the existing problem with Noccarc H210,” Kurela said.