The Aerospace Engineers Delivering Vital Medical Products to the Last Mile

Anshul Sharma recalls a health battle his friend and then-college-classmate, Arunabha Bhattacharya, once fought. Bhattacharya had to “stay in the hospital for months” to fight the disease, Sharma says.

“When you have to walk through the journey yourself, it brings more clarity to the situation,” Sharma continues.

Rishabh Gupta, Anshul Sharma, and Arunabha Bhattacharya of Redwing Labs.

That journey, which Bhattacharya made it through, greatly informed the bold company the two friends and fellow aerospace engineers went on to co-found: Redwing Labs, an aerial robotics drone company based in Bengaluru that focuses on delivering vital medical products on-demand.  With autonomous drones, Sharma and Bhattacharya, along with their other co-founder Rishabh Gupta, are strengthening the weaknesses of healthcare—many of which Bhattacharya had seen firsthand.

Considering the canvas of the healthcare system in India and surrounding Asian countries (as well as globally) there are major cracks. Severe and often-fatal consequences result from a lack of accessible critical products, such as blood and anti-venoms. In India, 2 million people die each year from vaccine-preventable causes. And postpartum hemorrhaging is a leading cause of maternal mortality.

Through its innovative web, Redwing Labs—which is the latest addition to the Beyond Capital Fund portfolio—is functioning like the water that fills in those cracks by delivering via drone medical products including platelets and plasma, antivenoms, and prescription and non-prescription drugs, to those in-need both in dense cities and drastically far-away rural locations.

“Our motto is ‘access, no matter where,’” says Sharma. “We’re focusing on the mid-mile to last-mile segments to ensure that everyone has access to affordable medical supplies.”

The drone logistics are detailed. Through India and the other Asian countries in which Redwing Labs currently operates, the company is building scalable networks that consist of “hubs” and “spokes.”

Even for those not steeped in the medical industry, the ingenuity behind Redwing Labs’ concept is obvious: Delivering people life-saving products on-demand is revolutionary and life-changing—for present and future generations. But taking an even closer look at the intricacies of medical supply  and the needs of biological products, the company becomes even more fascinating, and its potential even more apparent.

One vital example is the cold chain. Because various medical products are biological they require specific temperature maintenance to preserve their efficacy or else their active components will degrade. Once a certain product has been manufactured, such as a vaccine, it needs to remain at its proper until it is administered. The “cold chain” is the detailed network of international refrigerators, freezers, cold rooms, and cold carriers that ensure the vaccine stays at the right temperature while on route to the hospital or patient. (This is a timely topic as the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine requires ultra-cold storage.)

Cold storage is very expensive and tricky. Within the healthcare industry, massive amounts of products that require cold storage are consistently wasted, says Sharma. When the product is moving from manufacturing stores to state stores to regional stores to district stores to the last mile, all of those storage facilities and warehouses “need to have the right types of cold storage, and they need to have cold storage in-transit.” At each point, there is waste, Sharma says. So much so that vaccine manufacturers normally write off 20 to 30 percent of their inventory that leaves the center. 

Redwing Labs’ answer to this issue is cutting out the need for various cold-storage stopping points by providing quick, as-needed virtual cold-storage drone delivery. “It’s really coming down to the fact of what's the value proposition at the end of the day,” says Sharma, who acknowledges that while the transportation costs of drones are higher than the conventional means of transportation, there are significant savings on storage, capital, and expiry costs in comparison.

Think of it like ice cream, says Sharma. You don’t need a refrigerator in your house to enjoy a sundae, “because I will be delivering that ice cream to you on demand while maintaining cold chain.” Similarly, the last-mile hospitals that lack the vital cold storage don’t have to worry. 

By focusing on two-way and multi-stop deliveries, Redwing is poised to revolutionize the accessibility of life-saving solutions. Inside the minds of Sharma, Bhattacharya, and Gupta is a drive to rid the obstacles that for too-long have taken someone’s last breath or made their recovery harder. 

“Anyone can have an accident, or have a snake bite, or have a cardiac arrest at any time,” says Sharma. Redwing Labs’ work exists to be there for when that happens. “We’re blessed to be able to build a company like this.” 

To learn more about Redwing Labs, visit redwinglabs.in.

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