Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers have been under siege. Supply chain disruptions have limited access to everything from personal protective equipment to vaccinations for both COVID-related diseases and familiar diseases such as the flu, at a time when the globe needs them most.
If you see these disruptions, a trio of companies – Melbourne, Australia-based Swoop Aero, London’s Skyports and Kelberg, Germany-based BD Rowa – are teaming up to open an air-based avenue for medical and pharmaceutical deliveries. The three companies announced on Monday that they will combine air logistics expertise with healthcare-oriented technology to add a network of delivery drones to the global healthcare supply chains.
Swoop Aero and Skyports, two global leaders in drone technology, will integrate their solutions into BD Rowa’s automated healthcare technology infrastructure in the pharmaceutical industry, which includes robots that automatically select and dispense medicines. The company also recently added a last-mile delivery network.
“We were impressed with the technology of Swoop Aero and the impact it has had on Skyports in the global markets in conjunction with major players in the healthcare industry. It was clear early on that we shared common ground,” said Mario Ulrich, global industry leader in pharmaceutical distribution centers for BD Rowa.
The technology of Swoop Aero, with which Ulrich is so in love, includes self-piloting drones that specialize in contactless deliveries for pathology, medications, vaccinations and urgent blood. The aircraft are supported by a tech-based infrastructure that enables real-time location tracking and temperature monitoring for cold chain networks.
“There are so many touch points on the journey that pharmaceutical products take from the point of manufacture to the point of patient care. Installing technology on each of these offers opportunities to improve the results of the healthcare system,” he said. Swoop Aero CEO and co-founder Eric Peck. “Through seamless integration of sustainable air logistics to deliver medical care, we have already seen significant improvements in access to medicine through our operations.”
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The Swoop Aero solution is particularly useful for accessing remote or hard-to-reach communities. The company’s technology maps earthquakes, floods, forest fires and volcanic eruptions and provides live video surveillance feeds to assess safe landing sites and assist in search and rescue efforts. The drones can also be integrated into an existing logistics network of a company and are even capable of flying to and from ships at anchor, to connect land and sea-based operations.
Skyports, on the other hand, is more focused on building the infrastructure that supports drone flights. Swoop Aero Technology, in collaboration with the UK National Health Service and Royal Mail, as well as with FedEx (NYSE: FDX) in Ireland, builds and operates landing sites for drones, which they call Vertiports. The sites believe in miniature airports, but they are designed to be accessible to all vehicles.
Skyports currently operates three Vertiports. Its headquarters in London serve Europe and the Middle East, while its Singapore site covers the Asia-Pacific region and its Los Angeles location reaches customers in the Americas. Alex Brown, Skyports director of drone services, sees the company’s vertiports as one of the keys to opening up the global healthcare chain.
“We already know the power that drone logistics and healthcare facilities can bring to our work with the NHS in the UK, transport of pathology samples and COVID-19 testing,” Brown noted. “In the UK alone to date, we have saved over 12,000 hours of patient waiting time, which means patients start treatment earlier and move on with their lives.
“Through this partnership with BD Rowa,” he added, “we are bringing drone delivery to the pharmaceutical sector to provide speed, frequency and reliability to patients who are in hard-to-reach communities across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. “
Skyports, like Swoop Aero, have their own fleet of delivery drones that can deliver medical care in hard-to-reach places. The company offers two types of deliveries – maritime-focused deliveries, including ship to shore, and rural-focused deliveries that are cheaper and faster than a typical ground-based delivery network.
Drones in the health care system are not new, but they are still in an early stage. Drone delivery provider Zipline is often regarded as a leader in space after launching humanitarian drone missions as early as 2016 in Rwanda, where it provided supplies such as medicines and blood.
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Since then, the company has expanded its operations worldwide, even bringing its drone delivery network to the United States and states such as North Carolina and Utah. The Zipline US presence includes a partnership with Walmart (NYSE: WMT), launched in November to enable drone delivery of health and wellness products to Arkansas.
Wingcopter is another drone delivery company that has cemented itself in the healthcare industry. In January, it announced a partnership with unmanned aerial vehicle service provider Spright to deliver a “large fleet” of its drones, which are used to enable immediate deliveries of medical supplies, such as PPE and laboratory samples, for rural, underserved and hard- Areas to reach.
In contrast to these partnerships, the collaboration between Swoop Aero and Skyports will include a company in BD Rowa that is fully focused on the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.
“Next level thinking is to look outside of your immediate focus field at what other leading providers in the supply chain are doing, and to discover opportunities where collaboration can create more value,” said Peck of Swoop Aero. “BD Rowa has a strong pedigree in developing automated storage and distribution solutions for wholesalers, pharmacies, hospitals and patients. We look forward to working with them to increase the value they bring to healthcare systems by integrating autonomous air logistics. have got.
Monday’s announcement comes on the heels of another partnership for Swoop Aero, a collaboration with global satellite communications provider Iridium that was unveiled last week. Swoop Aero will take advantage of the Iridium connectivity architecture to enable operations in remote regions that often lack a strong communications infrastructure.
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