PLOS ONE

Zhu W., Oakey A., Royall P.G., Waters T.P., Cherrett T., Theobald K., Bester A.-M., Lucas R.

Cancer medicines are costly, bespoke to individual patients and have a short shelf-life which mandates their timely delivery. Uncrewed Air Vehicles, or drones, offer the potential for rapid delivery but the stability of onboard medicines must be assured. This research has focussed on the susceptibility of monoclonal antibodies – used to treat malignant diseases – to drone-borne vibration which occurs at higher levels and frequencies than conventional road transportation. Pharmaceutical tests found no detrimental effects of vibration on any of the samples flown. Future work will emulate drone vibration in the laboratory to better assess the effects of pharmaceutical products to variables such as flight duration, frequency content and amplitude.

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