The article does not support your take on this. Covidien — a publicly traded company with sales of $12 billion that year — already sold traditional ventilators

The article does not support your take on this. Covidien — a publicly traded company with sales of $12 billion that year — already sold traditional ventilators, but that was only a small part of its multifaceted businesses. In 2012 alone, Covidien bought five other medical device companies, in addition to Newport. Newport executives and government officials working on the ventilator contract said they immediately noticed a change when Covidien took over. Developing inexpensive portable ventilators no longer seemed like a top priority. Industry consolidation stifled an innovation that could have prevented the current ventilator shortage. Despite the federal government's best efforts.