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Alphabet X spinoff Wing on Wednesday confirmed that it has started delivering blood samples via drone. The program, announced in September, is shuttling samples between London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals.
Wing is running up to 10 deliveries a day, Monday through Friday. Each run can contain several different samples and takes around three minutes. The initial focus is on patients with potential bleeding disorders who are undergoing surgery.
Healthcare provides a huge potential market for the future of drone delivers. Past attempts have largely focused on providing goods for difficult to reach rural areas that are underserved by existing medical services.
Wing’s approach, however, brings the technology to one of the world’s great metropolises, where gridlock provides its own hurdles for fast and safe deliveries.
“We’ve been thrilled to see so much excitement around these patient-first operations as we’ve completed our final validations and have started delivering blood samples that doctors will use to make clinical decisions for their patients,” Wing notes. “From introducing our aircraft and way of operating at community events to meeting the NHS professionals who have quickly integrated drone delivery into their daily logistics, we’ve felt the warm welcome in South London.”
Amazon — which runs one of Wing’s biggest competitors, Prime Air — began delivering same-day medication delivery in select U.S. markets in October 2023. Expanding into additional markets has been slow going, however, as companies have been navigating regulation in both healthcare and commercial airspace.
Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Juniper.
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