From Barron's: Iconic American auto maker General Motors is joining forces to build ventilators in America’s battle with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company said Friday evening that it was leveraging its logistics, purchasing, and manufacturing expertise to assist health-care equipment maker Ventec to increase output.

“With GM’s help, Ventec will increase ventilator production,” said Ventec Life Systems CEO Chris Kiple in a joint news release. “By tapping their expertise, GM [ticker: GM] is enabling us to get more ventilators to more hospitals much faster. This partnership will help save lives”

Earlier in the week, President Donald Trump said he had invoked the Defense Protection Act to help spur production of needed medical equipment in the battle against the virus. General Motors said on Thursday that it was exploring partnerships.

“We are working closely with Ventec to rapidly scale up production of their critically important respiratory products to support our country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said GM CEO Mary Barra in the same news release. “We will continue to explore ways to help in this time of crisis.”

Ventec’s leading product is a device that integrates a ventilator, oxygen concentrator, cough assist, suction, and nebulizer into one system.

GM and Ventec are also working with Stopthespread.org, a coordinated private sector response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

In addition to manufacturing partnerships, the organization is suggesting ways to mitigate the economic impact, like accelerated payments to small businesses.