In April, GVB Medical announced its plans to help American front line workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the announcement, GVB has supplied three million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to companies and organizations including several state governments. Equipment secured by the company includes hand sanitizer, 3-ply masks, EUA authorized KN95 respirators, goggles, nitrile gloves, and face shields. Additional requests to their network of FDA-registered suppliers have been made to procure some 200 million more PPE items.  GVB aims to provide these supplies below market value to customers across the nation striving to meet regulatory requirements for reopening.

While the United States finds itself in short supply of protective equipment, the burden is lightening overseas in China, the area first hit by the COVID-19 crisis. With the outbreak there subsiding, products that were requisitioned by the Chinese government are seeing less need locally and are becoming available to the global market.

GVB has set out to ensure the procurement of quality supplies, deploying their in-house, China-based quality control group to factories predominantly in Fujian Province to verify all products meet GVB quality standards. According to GVB, “all shipments are inspected by GVB employees in China to ensure conformity before acceptance and delivery to the United States.” Robust and well-established supply chains are utilized to mitigate the effects of outbound air cargo congestion.

As states begin to lift their stay-at-home orders and allow businesses to reopen, strict guidelines have been put into place to ensure staff and customer safety. In tandem with PPE, GVB has activated its domestic hand sanitizer supply chain to produce up to 500,000 hand sanitizers per day.

GVB released a statement, saying “as companies all over the country do their part to provide safe environments for both staff and customers GVB is proud to offer affordable PPE that allows responsible reopening of business nationwide. With innovative solutions, trusted global relationships, efficient importing capacity and a firm commitment to process integrity, GVB is marshaling its resources to help protect American workers”.

GVB Medical is a division of GVB Biopharma.