Delivrone's AED drone wins France's first SAMU go-ahead

Delivrone is a French drone-logistics startup founded in 2021 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, focused on carrying light loads by drone. It developed the emergency-medical drone project with the region's SAMU and works with Sweden's Everdrone, which supplies the aircraft and takeoff infrastructure.

Delivrone bet a year-long AED-drone experiment with SAMU Rouen would earn the regulatory go-ahead to make it a routine service, France's first.

In France about 50,000 people suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest every year, and the CHU de Rouen says the 30-day survival rate is below 5%; a fast shock from a defibrillator multiplies survival chances. Delivrone spent a year trialing an AED drone around Forges-les-Eaux with SAMU 76A, proving it could fit into real emergency calls before asking to use it routinely.

In July 2026, SAMU 76A of the CHU de Rouen obtained the authorization to use the emergency drone — a first in France, which the hospital said required an evolution of drone flight rules under the DSAC civil aviation safety directorate. When a witness calls 15 about a suspected cardiac arrest, the centre can now trigger the drone to carry an AED to within metres of the scene before emergency crews arrive. A base at Bois-Guillaume serves the Rouen métropole, with a second planned further east.

The €300,000 project — Région Normandie contributed €138,000 for the CHU and €113,000 for Delivrone, which invested €40,000 itself — moved from experiment to routine operation, with Delivrone handling operational follow-up alongside Everdrone. The hospital called the rollout a first in France; close to 400 cardiac arrests in people under 75 occur in its intervention zone each year.

Defibrillators work only when used: France has about 500,000 of them, yet bystander use stays low, and a fast shock multiplies survival odds after cardiac arrest (BFM Normandie).

The drone closes a distance problem: a roughly 750 g AED can reach the caller within about a minute of dispatch, day or night, across a 200 km² zone, while ground crews still travel (Tendance Ouest).

A year of trials at Forges-les-Eaux proved the drone fits into real SAMU dispatch, giving hospital and regulator the evidence to authorize routine flights (BFM Normandie, Tendance Ouest).

Région Normandie covered €251,000 of the €300,000 two-site investment, de-risking the pilot until authorization turned it into a service (Tendance Ouest, Rouen Normandy Invest).

Delivrone's year of real emergency-call trials, not a pitch, is what DSAC's drone-rule evolution and SAMU's go-ahead rewarded — evidence turns an experiment into a licensed service.

From July 2026 the SAMU of Rouen's university hospital can dispatch Delivrone's defibrillator drone on real cardiac-arrest calls, and the CHU called the rollout a first in France. Delivrone manages operational follow-up with Everdrone from the Bois-Guillaume base, with a second base planned east of the Rouen métropole; close to 400 cardiac arrests in people under 75 occur in the SAMU's zone each year. Whether the model spreads to other French emergency services will depend on how the DSAC-authorized flights perform in routine use and on who funds the next bases.