The ePlane Co. and Apollo Hospitals Partner to Launch Electric Air Ambulances and Medical Drones

• Together, the two organizations aim to close the gap between accident and treatment connecting victims to trauma care in minutes, not hours.

Following a Memorandum of Understanding signed in Chennai, India, and announced today at the Farnborough International Airshow, UK, The ePlane Company and Apollo Hospitals have joined forces to address a critical healthcare challenge: every 3.5 minutes, someone in India dies in a road accident. With over 170,000 lives lost on Indian roads each year, and only 1 in 5 patients reaching trauma care within the critical "golden hour," urban congestion and geographic distance remain some of the biggest barriers to survival - not the absence of medical expertise.

To help close this gap, Ubifly Technologies Private Limited ("The ePlane Company") and Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to bring electric air ambulances and medical delivery drones into India's emergency healthcare system, connecting emergency patients across high-density urban corridors and remote access areas directly to the trauma care they need, without the delays of urban traffic or the expense of traditional helicopter transfers.
Why the Golden Hour Matters

For trauma, cardiac, and stroke patients, the first hour after an emergency often determines the difference between recovery and tragedy. Yet today, patients frequently lose that hour to traffic, distance, and the need to stabilize at any nearby facility before being moved again to specialized trauma care thereby losing precious time. This collaboration is designed to change that with a faster, more direct path from the point of emergency to definitive care.
A New Kind of Emergency Network

The collaboration brings together air and road ambulance network complementing one another::

• Electric Air Ambulances: ePlane's e200X aircraft, designed for rapid inter-hospital transfers, trauma response, cardiac and stroke emergencies, and organ transport, moving patients up to 7 times faster than road transport - at a fraction of the cost of a traditional helicopter transfer. 
• Medical Delivery Drones: Through its subsidiary Amber Wings, ePlane's unmanned aerial vehicles are designed to rapidly move blood products, organs, vaccines, medicines, and diagnostic samples between facilities - cutting critical delivery times from hours to minutes.

Apollo’s Network of 1066 ambulances, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and diagnostic centers,

A combination of above, creates the foundation for a connected emergency response system - one that could bring life-saving care to some of India's most congested and difficult to access cities.

Looking Ahead

As part of the collaboration, Apollo has indicated its intent to examine the possibility for orders for e200x air ambulances and Amber Wings' medical delivery drones. The MOU also outlines the possibility of a future strategic investment by Apollo in ePlane, subject to future agreement on terms. Both parties intend to work with India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation and other relevant authorities to help bring this vision to life, alongside continued discussions on infrastructure needed to support these operations.

"India loses far too many lives simply because help cannot arrive in time," said Dr Prathap C Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group. "As the founder of Apollo Hospitals, which pioneered India's private healthcare model, I have long believed that access, along with deep clinical expertise - is what saves lives. This collaboration with The ePlane Company reflects our commitment to bringing Apollo's clinical excellence to every corner of the country, however remote."

"Every minute matters when someone's life is on the line," said Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder & CTO of The ePlane Company. "Working with Apollo Hospitals allows us to explore how our electric aircraft and drones can help close the gap between accident and treatment, especially for the millions of Indians living far from specialized trauma care."

About The ePlane Company

Founded in 2019 and incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Incubation Cell, The ePlane Company (Ubifly Technologies Pvt. Ltd.) is India's leading deep-tech aerospace manufacturer pioneering the global transition to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). Headquartered at the 163-acre IIT Madras Discovery Campus in Thaiyur, Chennai, the company operates the nation's first and only dedicated 60,000+ square foot integrated electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) prototyping, manufacturing, and testing facility.

The company is the first private aerospace entity in India to receive a formal Design Organisation Approval (DOA) from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for electric aircraft, and its flagship e200X vehicle is the first eVTOL accepted into the DGCA's official Type Certification pipeline. Backed by over 10,000+ kilometers of cumulative physical flight testing across its ATVA and e50 technology demonstrators, ePlane specializes in high-efficiency, zero-emission aviation architectures tailored explicitly for high-density urban corridors.

Utilizing its patented global "Synergistic Lift" technology, ePlane engineers its aircraft around an ultra-compact 8x11 meter footprint, removing the need for specialized vertiports and unlocking immediate rooftop scalability using standard existing municipal helipads. Backed by world-class institutional capital (Speciale Invest, Antares Ventures, Naval Ravikant) and guided by an elite board of global aviation veterans, The ePlane Company is commercializing a modular airframe built to transform three key multi-billion-dollar verticals globally: high-frequency passenger Air Taxis, critical Air Ambulances, and middle-mile Urban Cargo networks.

For more technical information, explore www.eplane.ai.

About Apollo Hospitals Enterprise LimitedApollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd (AHEL) revolutionised healthcare when Dr Prathap Reddy started the first hospital in Chennai in 1983. Today, AHEL is the world's largest integrated healthcare platform with over 10,400 beds across 76 hospitals, 6,600+ pharmacies, 264 clinics, 2,182 diagnostic centres, and 800+ telemedicine centres. It is one of the world's leading cardiac centres, having performed over 3,00,000 angioplasties and 2,00,000 surgeries. AHEL’s 1,20,000 family members are dedicated to delivering exceptional care and leaving the world better than we found it.