This Italian company’s masks and filters are helping doctors fight back against the coronavirus—in China, the U.S., Italy and beyond
Demand for its filters for pulmonary ventilators is up 50% from the same period last year, with the life-saving devices in increasingly short supply. “Our plant manager in China is asking me to double production lines because they can’t keep up with the demand,” Scagliarini toldin a phone interview on Friday. “I spoke with a nearby company that produces pulmonary ventilators, and we’re trying to see how to work with them because they’re supplying the Italian civil protection agency.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, GVS expanded by building two new plants in Italy plus subsidiaries in Serbia, Argentina and Brazil. The company received its first outside financing in 2001, when it sold a 20% stake to B Group, an Italian private equity firm. “Like all family companies in Italy, we made decisions around the kitchen table,” said Scagliarini. “We wanted to grow and become more professional.
That strategy paid off, and GVS went on to complete a string of acquisitions of smaller filter and biohazard equipment manufacturers in six countries, including three in the United States. The Scagliarini family regained full ownership when they bought out Mandarin Capital’s stake in 2015. GVS has been involved in the fight against COVID-19 since it emerged, before it began its deadly march across Europe and the rest of the world. In the early days of the pandemic, when the coronavirus was still largely limited to China, GVS donated filters and supplies from its factory in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou to meet demand in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
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