In May of 2020, Apple invested $10 million in COPAN Diagnostics to manufacture COVID-19 sample collection kits. In addition to this, the tech giant also sent engineers to the diagnostics firm to help speed up the production process at a time when shortages of testing supplies had hindered efforts to track the spread of coronavirus.
With the help of Apple’s aid, COPAN Diagnostics hired almost 250 people, created a new medical facility, and now the company has shipped more than 15 million coronavirus sample collection kits across the United States.
COPAN ships 15 million coronavirus sample collection kits with the help of Apple’s $10 million investment
In a recent press release, Apple announced that from April 2020, production increased by close to 4,000%. “We are proud our Advanced Manufacturing Fund is supporting companies like COPAN who are playing a critical role in the fight against COVID-19,” said Apple COO Jeff Williams, “and assisting healthcare professionals and communities across the country.”
“This collaboration helped produce, ship, and deliver millions of sample collection kits to hospitals from coast to coast,” he continued, “and we believe it is this unique combination of American manufacturing and innovation that will help us emerge from this crisis and build a safer world for us all.”
Apple says that’s it will keep on working with COPAN and more than a dozen other companies to discover new and innovative ways to increase the production of COVID-19 sampling kits by developing new machinery at COPAN’s facility in Southern California.
“We are proud our Advanced Manufacturing Fund is supporting companies like COPAN who are playing a critical role in the fight against COVID-19 and assisting healthcare professionals and communities across the country,”
Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund was designed to provide companies in the United States with the capital needed to speed up production, more for tech-driven manufacturing. So far, Apple has invested more than $1.3B from the fund to and supports over 450,000 US jobs across all 50 states in the U.S.
In addition, Apple has also manufactured face shields for health care providers, released screening tools, and has built contract tracing technology in collaboration with Google.
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