Drone company Wingcopter gets more firepower in vaccine delivery race

Draganfly

25/01/2021 16:27

By Caroline Copley
    BERLIN, Jan 25 (Reuters) - German start-up Wingcopter has
secured fresh funding to strengthen its position in the race to
offer COVID-19 vaccine distribution by air, seeking to get shots
into the arms of people in hard-to-reach places, it said on
Monday.
    The company, based in Weiterstadt, is working on a number of
trial projects for countries in Africa and Southeast Asia,
aiming to scale up operations to deliver vaccines to millions of
people, Chief Executive Tom Pluemmer told Reuters.
    Pluemmer expects the pandemic to increase acceptance of
unmanned aircraft and reshape logistics by transporting medical
equipment and supplies quickly and safely while minimising human
contact.
    "COVID is now making it necessary to build it out fast, but
once it's there we will have a new type of infrastructure that
could carry things like medication, blood, lab samples and even
normal daily goods," he told Reuters on Monday.
    Wingcopter is one of several drone start-ups seeking to play
a role in the delivery of vaccines in regions lacking good
storage facilities or developed transport infrastructure.
    North American company Draganfly  DFLY.CD  has been picked
by Coldchain Technology Services to transport COVID-19 vaccines
while start-up Volansi Inc has partnered with drugmaker Merck
 MRK.N  to deliver temperature-sensitive vaccines in rural North
Carolina.
    Wingcopter said it has secured $22 million in Series A
funding to help to set up the logistics infrastructure needed to
distribute COVID-19 vaccines and ramp up drone production.
    Investors included Xplorer Capital, a backer of ride-hailing
service Uber  UBER.N  and self-driving car start-up Zoox, which
was bought by Amazon  AMZN.O  last year.
    The dronemaker has also received German government funding
to build a healthcare delivery network in Malawi and has already
started training local drone pilots.
    One of Wingcopters's drones can transport about 2,500
vaccine doses a day, Pluemmer said, and the company is seeking
partners to build a new drone that could carry up to 1,000 doses
per flight.


 (Reporting by Caroline Copley
Editing by Douglas Busvine and David Goodman)
 ((Caroline.Copley@thomsonreuters.com; +49 (0)30 2201 33584 ;))