Apple has made a $10 million donation from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics, which has helped ship more than 15 million COVID-19 tests across the United States.
An Apple press release says teams at Apple, COPAN, and more than a dozen other US companies created innovative processes and developed new machinery for COPAN’s Southern California facilities, increasing test-kit production by close to 4,000 percent since April.
“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,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “This collaboration helped produce, ship, and deliver millions of sample collection kits to hospitals from coast to coast — 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.”
In order to meet the ongoing demand for testing resources, COPAN accelerated its production and shipping timeline and built an entire team to ramp this project, hiring nearly 250 new employees who worked alongside Apple engineers, product designers, operations professionals, and others.
Apple says it will continue to work with COPAN and over a dozen other firms to find new ways to increase the production of COVID-19 tests by developing new machinery at COPAN’s facility in Southern California.
Apple’s investment in the fund so far accounts for more than $1.3 billion and supports 450,000 suppliers jobs across all 50 states.
