Hecklingen (dpa/sa) – At Cochstedt Airport (Salzlandkreis) the first test flights for the distribution of medicines via drone started on Wednesday. The project aims to improve medical care, especially in rural areas, said Franziska Fink, a research assistant at the University Hospital in Halle. With the project on the so-called pharmacy drone app, which is supported by university medicine, the initiators want to test a drug distribution system using drones under real conditions.
According to Fink, the drones should deliver the medication in the front yard of the patient. Various scenarios are conceivable for this. This includes, among other things, handing over the medication using a cable winch or dropping it off using a small parachute. The subjects “should and usually want little personal contact” with the device, explained Fink. Therefore, according to current plans, the drone should not land.
According to the initiators, the range of the drones is currently around 30 kilometers. This means that people within a radius of 15 kilometers from a pharmacy could benefit. However, it could still take some time until that happens, explained one of the project’s employees. Although the drones can be approved, the approval process has so far been very slow. According to the employee, the idea could be ready for the market “in two to three years”.
The participating pharmacies should eventually rent the drones – not buy them, explained Fink. So far, the project team has seen continuous further development of the service linked to an app. Initial results show that user acceptance and user-friendliness have increased. But there is still a lot to do, explained Fink.
The project focuses primarily on patients with restricted mobility or those living in rural areas. One of the developers said at the start of the project about a year and a half ago that the system consisting of prescription receipt, goods distribution and delivery via drone should be ready for the market during the two-year project period.
The initiator of the project is a pharmacist from Dessau. Research is now to be carried out on the project together with software developers and drone manufacturers.
