Deliveries by drone are taking off in health care

No longer just in Africa, but in Europe and America too

A few years ago Jeff Bezos made a prediction. By 2018 his e-commerce empire, Amazon, would be delivering items by drone. Prime Air has yet to launch. But startups are making progress—mostly in health care, where they are vying to tap into a lucrative, $70bn global market in health-care logistics. As they deal with regulators and investors, these firms are charting the course for other aerial deliveries.

One of the best known is Zipline, based in San Francisco. It took off in Rwanda in 2016, where it is now a national on-demand medical drone network, delivering 150 medical products, mostly blood and vaccines, to hard-to-reach places. Maternal mortality rates are declining thanks to the delivery of blood. Other firms have used drones to supply medicines in Bhutan, Malawi and Papua New Guinea. Patients in many Swiss hospitals can receive results on the day a sample is taken. Zipline is expanding into Ghana and, later this year, into North Carolina, an American state with many out-of-the-way rural medical facilities. It wants to serve 700m people in the next three to four years.