Retailio Launches Drone Delivery for Medicine Across India

Indian digital B2B healthcare marketplace Retailio recently launched a drone medicine delivery pilot with drone logistics firm Redwing Labs in the Chickkaballapur district in Karnataka, according to a MobHealthNews report Monday (Jan. 24).

The hybrid vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones traveled about 10 km (more than 6 miles) between Gauribidanur and the Hossur Primary Healthcare Centre in eight minutes, with an average speed of 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour and a payload weight of up to two kilograms (4.4 pounds).

The pilot focused primarily on delivering medicine to hospitals in less than 10 minutes, maintaining the cold chain and other medical necessities, using Retailio’s online platform, which connects distributors and pharmaceutical companies across more than 1,000 pharma companies in more than 100 cities.

The network includes about 3,000 distributors and almost 100,000 pharmacies, hospitals and nursing homes across India.

“The vision to integrate drones in the healthcare ecosystem is a critical step towards efficient medicine delivery. We feel autonomous drones at scale would bring in a lot of disruption in healthcare delivery,” Retailio CEO Mithil Jain said in the report.

The drone delivery pilot opens new opportunities to provide healthcare supplies to remote areas across India, he said.

Related: Rupifi, Retailio Deal Gives India Pharma SMBs BNPL Options

In September, Retailio partnered with Indian lending FinTech Rupifi to enable credit for its pharmaceutical retailers. Rupifi provides buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) on B2B marketplaces across sectors including fast-moving consumer goods, food, pharma, fashion, electronics, agriculture and general merchandise.

Rupifi aims to ensure that SMB retailers in metros as well as in Tier-1/2/3 cities and towns get access to digital and real-time credit through its BNPL offering.

Ankit Singh, co-founder of Rupifi, said the one-year-old FinTech has “built one of the most robust SME BNPL products in the industry,” offering it to thousands of SMBs through its partners.