When we talk about deliveries by drone, usually the items traveling from one place to another are relatively frivolous, like flowers, takeout orders, beer, and the occasional appetizer. A company expanding into this country plans to deliver things that are even more life-saving than mozzarella sticks, though: it will use drones to bring blood for transfusion and medicine to remote areas.

The company, Zipline, first set up shop in Rwanda, working with the government there to get necessary supplies delivered to remote areas. Yet the U.S. is an enormous country with enormous health inequalities according to income and where a person lives.

“There’s a linear relationship between how far away you live from a city and your expected lifespan,” Zipline’s CEO, Keller Rinaudo, told The Verge. “So our hope is that this type of technology can solve those kinds of inequalities.”

The company was specifically invited to go into business in the U.S. by the Obama administration, and the process of getting a drone-based business is slow even with a personal invitation from the White House.

The company will apply to the FAA for a waiver to set up a commercial unmanned aerial vehicle business. Zipline expects to be in business delivering to remote areas and Native reservations in a year or so.

Drones will begin delivering blood and medicine in the US [The Verge]

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