Company prioritizes $15k ventilators over cheaper model specified in contract

Enlarge / A man performs a test at a ventilator manufacturing workshop at the offices of Formon, a 3D printer manufacturer in Pristina, Kosovo on April 5, 2020. (credit: Armend Nimani | Getty Images)

Company fails to deliver promised cheap ventilators, now charging 4x the price

The Dutch company that received millions of taxpayer dollars to develop an affordable ventilator for pandemics but never delivered them has struck a much more lucrative deal with the federal government to make 43,000 ventilators at four times the price.

The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it plans to pay Royal Philips N.V. $646.7 million for the new ventilators—paying more than $15,000 each. The first 2,500 units are to arrive before the end of May, HHS said, and the rest by the end of December.