• Zipline, a drone-based medical supplies delivery company, has announced plans to deliver medicine and healthcare equipment via drones to residents in Salt Lake City, Utah, in collaboration with local not-for-profit medical group Intermountain Healthcare.

• Zipline plans to commence the service by mid-2022 aiming to reach hundreds of patients per day (about 90% of patient homes in the area) within its first four years of operation. Initially, Zipline will focus on delivering items within a 50-mile radius of its proposed local distribution center (construction to commence early 2022).

• The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) approval for the service is still pending, but the company expects to obtain the approval for commercial flights on a trial basis in the coming weeks.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Although Zipline is based in the US, its primary operations are in Africa. It has so far completed more than 200,000 commercial deliveries, making it one of the most advanced startups in the drone delivery space. Necessary funds for scaling its operations in the US were made available to the company in June when it raised USD 250 million partially for this purpose. However, this is not Zipline’s first drone deployment in the US. Previously, the company partnered with Novant Health (May 2020) for a temporary project in North Carolina, and with Walmart (September 2020) to trial deliveries in Bentonville, Arkansas.</ul>