Zipline is an American medical product delivery company headquartered in South San Francisco, California that designs, builds, and operates drone aircraft. The company operates distribution centers in Rwanda and Ghana. The company began drone deliveries in Rwanda in 2016 and primarily delivers blood. It was founded in 2014.
Zipline International — the health-tech drone-delivery company that launched its service in Rwanda just three years ago — announced it has officially expanded its operations to Ghana, making it the world’s largest autonomous medical drone delivery service.
Zipline has expanded from one distribution company in Rwanda delivering blood to 21 hospitals to operating six distribution centers in two countries, delivering more than 170 different vaccines, blood products and medications to 2,500 health facilities. Its reach now serves nearly 22 million people.
Dedicated to providing every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies, Zipline employs aerospace veterans from SpaceX, Google, Boeing and NASA to design and operate its autonomous systems, which can deliver a package within 30 minutes after a health-care worker places an order by text. Zipline’s drones take off and land from its distribution centers.
Access to vital health products worldwide has historically hampered the difficulty of supplying medicine from central storage to remotely located patients when and where they need it.
In the U.S., this problem requires health systems to tolerate high medicine waste, expensive emergency trips and sub-optimal care strategies. In far too many other areas, the same problem means that people in need of lifesaving care do not get the medicine they need to survive.
According to cnbc.com
