Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Zipline’s Drone Delivering Drugs To Remote Places Other Services Can’t Reach

April 10, 2018 By Tierney King

A national drone delivery system known as Zipline is delivering life-saving medicine to places that are difficult to reach. One of these places is Rwanda. They have been receiving blood, plasma and platelets delivered to over 20 hospitals. Since launching Zipline, Rwanda has received 7,000 units of blood from their drone missions. A third of these have been received in immediate life-saving situations, according to the company. Currently, Zipline delivers more than 20 percent of Rwanda’s blood supply.

Zipline’s just-in-time drone delivery is transforming Rwanda’s medical supply chain by ensuring hospitals have access to blood products. This in turn has helped reduce waste and spoilage by over 95 percent. Zipline is working on opening up a second distribution center in Rwanda to help the entire country instead of specific locations.

Although, Zipline has been focused on Rwanda, they hope to extend their services to the United States.

Image credit: Zipline

“Billions of people on earth lack access to critical medicine,” said Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo, in a statement. “In East Africa, Zipline’s drones bring people the medicine they need, when they need it in a way that reduces waste, cost and inventory while increasing access and saving lives. We’ve been hard at work to improve our technology and are ready to help save lives in America and around the world.”

Zipline is currently working with state governments to launch a medical drone delivery in part with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who announced the UAS Integration Pilot Program (UASIPP).

The UASIPP was created for state, local and tribal governments to join forces with the private sector and quicken the process of safe commercial drone innovation in the country.

One of the program’s goals is to have beyond visual line-of-sight flights over heavily occupied areas in the FAA’s National Airspace System. The FAA will approve UASIPP projects by May 2018. United States projects coordinating with Zipline will take in effect and begin operation by the end of 2018.

Additionally, Zipline announced it plans to launch an extensive drone delivery service in Tanzania to provide emergency access with life-saving medication. This project will service Tanzania with blood transfusion supplies, vaccines, HIV medications, antimalarials, antibiotics, lab chemicals and surgical supplies. The scale of this project has the potential to help up to 2,000 life-saving deliveries a day, essentially serving 10 million people worldwide.

“The new aircraft and distribution center system we’re unveiling…will help Zipline scale to meet the needs of countries around the world—including the United States,” said Rinaudo.

Related Articles Read More >

Biological Toolkit of Cells Assembled Like Legos
New Technology Keeps Eye On Babies’ Movement In The Womb
Robots Won’t Replace Teachers But Can Boost Children’s Education
Artificial Placenta Created In Laboratory

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 20, 2022
DeviceTalks Boston Post-Game – Editors’ Top Moments, Insulet’s Eric Benjamin on future of Omnipod 5
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech