In 2016, Zipline launched its activities in Muhanga District, southern Rwanda, and has since grown to become the world's most reliable and innovative instant logistics platform. In October this year, the company celebrated its fifth anniversary of delivering vital medical supplies to hospitals, including blood.

On average, the company completes a delivery once every four minutes, a milestone for commercial deliveries of any unnamed aircraft system (UAS) provider so far. In collaboration with the Rwandan government, Zipline has been able to revolutionize healthcare in Rwanda by targeting hard-to-reach areas.

In October 2016, Zipline launched blood deliveries in Rwanda, the first country to adopt and test Zipline's vision.

"Five years ago, we took a chance on a bold startup that said it could provide instant access to blood supply, nationwide. Today, we’re glad we did,” said Dr. Daniel Ngamije, Rwanda's Minister of Health. "Now, Zipline delivers nearly three-quarters of our nation’s blood supply outside of Kigali.”

The startup has since built the first and only automated, on-demand delivery service to operate at multinational scale. Each distribution center handles 250 deliveries per day, which is nearly 2 tons of delivery capacity per week.

To put that in context, over the past 5 years, the partnerships in Africa alone have led to the delivery of over 1 million vaccine doses and directly saved countless lives and with safety at the core of this unique delivery system.

By pioneering this technology on a global stage, Rwanda enabled patients in remote areas to access treatment faster thanks to Zipline's ability to test its processes in a controlled environment with the right partners.

Additionally to helping patients, easy, consistent, and reliable access to medication gave health stakeholders the momentum they needed to make healthcare more equitable regardless of geographic or economic backgrounds.

The company's success has resulted in not only changing the delivery system in Rwanda but also providing employment for graduates in niche fields. Over 80% of Zipline's team is under 35 and has backgrounds ranging from psychology, pharmacy, to engineering. As a result, these young graduates now have the chance to pursue careers related to their areas of interest without having to leave the country.

The company has significantly expanded its footprint in Africa during the last few months, signing partnerships with the Cross River and Kaduna states in Nigeria and closing an agreement to double its presence in Ghana so that it can serve 90% of the country's population.

As part of its efforts to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company launched the first and only national-scale UAS delivery for Covid-19 vaccines. Across Ghana, Zipline has delivered more than 170,000 doses.

Additionally, the company is collaborating with Pfizer to develop and test an end-to-end solution for cold chain products. Nearly 2,000 healthcare facilities have received millions of Zipline products.

"Over the last five years, we’ve established instant logistics infrastructure that is more practical, sustainable and scalable than anything that came before,” said Keenan Wyrobek, co-founder and CTO of Zipline.

"The 200,000 deliveries we’ve made over nearly 15 million miles of flight is a powerful testament to what we’ve built—and we are just getting started. I can't wait to share what's next.”

Zipline, a global instant logistics leader, designs, manufactures and operates the world’s largest automated on-demand delivery service, which to date has made more than 200,000 commercial deliveries. Zipline is the trusted partner for governments, global brands and leading health care systems.

Drone delivering blood to the hospital. / File