Medikabazaar plans drone delivery pilots for critical medical supplies
2 min read . Updated: 07 Jul 2020, 07:10 PM IST
Premium- Medikabazaar plans to cut down delivery time of medicines to 30 minutes and do a commercial operational launch of the service next year
- Zipline will serve over 100 hospitals on Medikabazaar’s platform from two distribution centers in Pune and Nandurbar districts, covering a service range of 85 km.
BENGALURU: Business-to-business marketplace for medical equipment Medikabazaar plans to pilot drone delivery of medicines and critical medical supplies, and has partnered with on-demand drone delivery service Zipline.
The healthcare company is currently awaiting approval from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for the pilot.
Medikabazaar plans to cut down delivery time of medicines to 30 minutes and do a commercial operational launch of the service next year. Zipline will serve over 100 hospitals on Medikabazaar’s platform from two distribution centers in Pune and Nandurbar districts, covering a service range of 85 km.
“Our tie-up with Zipline will help resolve the issue of emergency medical supply in two ways. First, it will assist in the timely delivery of essential medical items, and second, it will also reduce the risk of disease contraction by eliminating close human contact from the supply chain," said Vivek Tiwari, Founder and CEO of Medikabazaar.
Over the next few months, Medikabazaar and Zipline plan to onboard several hospitals and integrate the instant delivery service seamlessly into their existing ordering platforms. This will allow hospitals to directly place orders through Zipline’s ordering system that will be linked to the Medikabazaar platform.
The list of medical products to be delivered through drones would include critical life-saving pharmaceuticals such as vaccines, antibiotics, insulin and other emergency medicines.
“Zipline has been hard at work helping other countries respond to the pandemic. We’re proud to partner with Medikabazaar, to begin helping in India as well. We’re likely in for a long-term fight against covid-19. Using contactless drone logistics will be an important tool in that effort," said Keller Rinaudo, CEO, Zipline.
The company also plans to then expand the service to even process doorstep delivery of medical supplies within the containment zones or potential hotspots if the outbreak remains intact or during future outbreaks.
Last September, Zipline had partnered with the Government of Maharashtra and Serum Institute of India (SII) to build and operate distribution centers.
Last month, foodtech unicorn Swiggy along with drone and traffic management solution provider ANRA Technologies announced to start test fly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drones for deliveries sometime in the middle of July, subject to easing of covid-19 restrictions.
In June, delivery startups including Swiggy, Zomato and Dunzo, budget airline SpiceJet and Reliance-backed drone startup Asteria Aerospace were among 13 consortia which received approvals from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to test-fly BVLOS drones.
