Delivery drone maker Matternet will be dropping medicines at one more health facility in the United Kingdom, after it was announced that the company’s partnership with the UK National Health Service and healthcare logistics provider Apian will be widened.
The partnership will see Matternet’s drones making delivery operations at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH), transporting time-sensitive pediatric pathology samples for GOSH, reducing urgent delivery times by up to 90%.
The service will initially connect GOSH with nearby laboratories operated by The Doctors Laboratory (TDL), with plans to expand across the network to additional sites. This rollout builds on Matternet’s decade of operational healthcare experience and highlights the immediate benefits NHS drone delivery brings to patients.
“Matternet is proud to deliver urgent medical payloads for GOSH, which has long been a world leader in pediatric healthcare,” said Andreas Raptopoulos, founder and CEO of Matternet.
“By using autonomous technology to transport samples faster and more reliably, GOSH clinicians can make faster diagnostic and treatment decisions for their patients. We look forward to our continued expansion with Apian to serve more patients across the NHS system.”
The expansion marks another step in Matternet’s growing UK healthcare business, which was launched in central London in April this year, still in partnership with Apian and the NHS.
The autonomous network connects multiple core medical hubs, blood banks, and laboratories within the Central London/Blackfriars corridor. Operating with approval from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), this targeted urban footprint is designed to act as the foundation for an eventual city-wide medical drone infrastructure.
“Children come to Great Ormond Street from all over the country, many of them with rare and complex conditions. For their families, the wait for a test result can be one of the hardest parts of being in hospital,” said Dr Tim Liversedge, Chief of Staff for Core Clinical Services and Consultant Paediatric Anaesthetist at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
“Our ambition with this partnership is to support our clinical teams to transport and test samples faster, helping us make the right decisions for our patients and their families as efficiently as possible.”
Matternet has been operating commercial drone delivery services for more than a decade, starting with humanitarian missions in 2014 before moving into healthcare logistics in Europe and the US. It has also worked with major logistics partners, including UPS.
Apian, meanwhile, was founded by NHS doctors and has developed a logistics platform connecting hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies using drones, ground robotics and software. Its existing London network has already delivered thousands of patient samples.
“Great Ormond Street Hospital cares for some of the most seriously ill children in the UK, and our clinicians shouldn’t have to wait on London traffic for answers,” said Dr Kimberly Gilmour, Chief of Laboratory Medicine at GOSH.
“When samples reach the laboratory in minutes, we can begin testing sooner and get results back to the teams caring for these children. It is an important step towards a delivery network that could serve the whole NHS.”