The company, which is based on Learmonth Road and normally specialises processing and mining solutions, made a highly inventive move in a very different direction earlier this year.

During the initial lockdown phase of COVID-19 across the country, the news that one of the founders of the company, Sandy Gray, had put together a prototype ventilator was a rare local good news story.

The news of the work he had done which spread much further afield than Ballarat, with interest from media across the country.

It was perhaps the most striking example of how businesses in the local area were adapting to the crisis.

They were working towards a Therapeutic Goods Administration [TGA] exemption, which would allow the ventilator to be used in Victoria.

At that time, the prospect of the hospitals being swamped by patients was urgent and alarming. However, the process for approval slowed down slightly in the following weeks, largely due to the initial success the country had at pushing new cases down. Victoria also has an adequate supply of ventilators to tackle the COVID-19 crisis for now - even with the recent surge across the state.

However, the Gekko team remain hopeful the exemption will come through - and have said the export market also offers potential for their innovation to be put to use.

"We have continued to tweak [the prototype] - as we have gone through it, the TGA has tightened up their requirements along the way, we've tightened up the design," said Gekko founder and managing director Elizabeth Lewis-Gray.

"Every time you tighten up the design you have to re-test it."

If the exemption does come through, available technology that has already been fully approved by the TGA would be used first, with the Gekko system as a potential back-up.

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Gekko project manager Scott Baker told The Courier that the support from suppliers had been "pretty overwhelming".

"People have poured their heart and souls into this and I have seen some people absolutely drained, their tanks completely emptied on this job, working ridiculous days just trying to get it done," he said.

"To see this go through and go into manufacturing, it would be a fantastic feeling."

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Ms Lewis-Gray said the most likely markets for export would be in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and India. She said the company was talking to trade representatives to try and get up the business.

"We just want to go and make sure it's used somewhere," she said.

"I hate to think of all those people around the world who don't have access to a ventilator when we've got something we can help them with. We're very optimistic about going into manufacture."

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