Transform
health access
-white.svg)
Adaptable healthcare logistics solutions
Warehousing & Inventory Management
Zipline designs, builds, and operates world-class pharmaceutical and medical-grade warehouses, each managing inventory for an unlimited number of points of care.
Distribution & Logistics
Zipline delivers shipments via the fastest and most reliable instant logistics service, using the only scaled autonomous aircraft network in the world.
Data & Performance Management
Zipline's complete, accurate, time and location tagged dataset drives supply chain performance and continuous operational improvement across health systems.
Transforming Rwanda's blood supply chain
Challenge
Rwanda's four regional centers (RCBTs) were seeking innovative ways to scale up an even, quick, efficient, and equitable distribution of blood across the country, while also controlling inventory levels and keeping spoilage low.
Solution
In 2016, the government of Rwanda partnered with Zipline to streamline blood distribution in the world's first application of instant logistics at scale. Five years later, Rwanda has scaled the program nationwide. Zipline delivers specialized blood components and medicines to over 350 Rwandan health facilities and handles over 75% of blood distribution outside of the capital, Kigali. The partnership has allowed RCBTs to increase their focus on donor collection and light processing. As a result, RCBTs have increased throughput by 2-3x and Zipline has helped reduce wastage by 95% while providing universal access to blood and specialized blood products and other essential medicines.
Powering Ghana's COVID-19 response
Challenge
Nearly half of Ghana's population lives outside of cities, and those 12 million residents are challenging to reach with time-limited, cold chain-dependent services. The Government of Ghana needed a solution to quickly and equitably distribute highly perishable and cold-chain dependent COVID-19 vaccines quickly, equitably, and cost effectively.
Solution
Zipline combines its on-demand delivery system and centralized storage capabilities to reduce logistics costs, eliminate wastage, and bypass the need for cold chain infrastructure at every point of care. The Ministry of Health leveraged Zipline to transport COVID-19 samples, national-scale PPE delivery, and equitable Covid-19 vaccine delivery at scale. Zipline's scalable system can distribute 75,000 vaccine doses per week from each hub at 5-10 cents per dose.
Bringing cancer care closer to home
Challenge
In early 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown posed a major global health threat to outpatients in health facilities including the Butaro Hospital, Rwanda's main cancer care referral center, managed by Partners In Health (PIH) and the Rwandan government. Many patients had to travel 8-12 hours round trip for treatment. As COVID-19 infections rose, experts feared lengthy travel could increase patient exposure or lead to missed or delayed treatment. PIH had to rethink its approach to delivering time-sensitive medicines.
Solution
Partners In Health collaborated with Zipline to distribute cancer medications to local district hospitals. On-demand delivery reduced average patient travel time from eight hours to one hour - an 85% reduction in travel time that increased access to care, reduced risk of exposure, and increased treatment adherence.
Ultra cold chain vaccine distribution
Challenge
COVID-19 vaccines require strict end-to-end temperature control from production to the point of use. Many countries lack the ultra-low temperature (ULT) storage infrastructure and cold chain distribution capacity to execute comprehensive national COVID immunization programs. Governments require end-to-end cold chain logistics to distribute vaccines to hard-to-reach communities safely and efficiently.
Solution
To prepare for a flood of critical COVID-19 vaccines into Africa, Pfizer and Zipline collaborated to test and then implement an end-to-end supply chain from vaccine manufacturing facility in Europe to UAV-based last-mile delivery in Ghana. Zipline successfully maintained the cold chain to the point of vaccine administration, and Pfizer validated the performance of Zipline's packaging in maintaining vaccine integrity through aerial delivery.
.svg){kind=logo}