Coming soon to your doorstep: Drone-delivered prescriptions from Amazon
Amazon will soon make prescription drugs fall from the sky when the e-commerce giant becomes the latest company to offer drone deliveries for medications.
The company said Wednesday that customers in College Station, Texas, can now get prescriptions delivered by a drone within an hour of placing their order.
The drone, programmed to fly from a delivery center with a secure pharmacy, will travel to the customer’s address, descend to a height of about 4 meters — or 13 feet — and drop a padded package.
Amazon says customers will be able to choose from more than 500 medications, a list that includes common treatments for conditions including the flu and pneumonia, but not controlled substances.
The company’s Prime Air division began testing drone deliveries of common household items in December in College Station and Lockeford in California‘s San Joaquin County. Amazon spokesperson Jessica Bardoulas said the company has made thousands of deliveries since launching the service and is expanding it to include prescriptions based in part on customer requests.
As many as 9,000 Americans die each year after receiving the wrong prescription drugs or doses. Pharmacies are fighting a bill to shed light on the problem.
Later on Wednesday, Amazon announced it will also launch drone delivery at a third U.S. location and cities in Italy and the United Kingdom by the end of next year. The company said it will disclose the exact locations in the coming months.
Amazon Prime already delivers some medications from the company’s pharmacy within two days. But pharmacy Vice President John Love said that doesn’t help someone with an acute illness such as the flu.
“What we’re trying to do is figure out how can we bend the curve on speed,” he said.
Amazon Pharmacy’s chief medical officer, Dr. Vin Gupta, says the U.S. healthcare system generally struggles with diagnosing and treating patients quickly for acute illnesses, something that was apparent throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reducing the time between diagnosis and treatment makes many remedies more effective, he said.
Amazon is not the first company to explore prescription deliveries by drone. Drugstore chain CVS Health worked with UPS to test deliveries in 2019 in North Carolina, but that program has ended, a CVS spokesman said.
Every year, millions of Californians leave the pharmacy with the wrong drugs or dosages. Don’t let it happen to you.
Intermountain Health started providing drone deliveries of prescriptions in 2021 in the Salt Lake City area and has been expanding the program, said Daniel Duersch, supply chain director for the healthcare system. Intermountain is partnering with the logistics company Zipline to use drones that drop packages by parachute.
Companies seeking to use drones for commercial purposes have faced hurdles from regulators who want to make sure things are operating safely. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted a decade ago that drones would be making deliveries by 2018. So far, the e-commerce giant is only using the technology in two markets.
Lisa Ellman, executive director of the Commercial Drone Alliance, an industry group that counts Amazon as one of its members, said that to date, regulatory approvals have been limited to specific geographic areas and “in terms of their scope and usefulness to companies.”
That said, she noted regulators have also been issuing more approvals. Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration gave the OK for Zipline and UPS to fly longer-range drones.
Walmart has also been working to expand its own drone deliveries.
Employees at Walgreens pharmacies across the U.S. walked out Monday, protesting unsafe working conditions.
Amazon says its drones will fly as high as 120 meters, or nearly 400 feet, before slowly descending when they reach the customer’s home. The drone will check to make sure the delivery zone is clear of pets, children or any other obstructions before dropping the package on a delivery marker.
The company said it hopes to expand the program to other markets, but it has no time frame for that.
Amazon has been growing its presence in healthcare for a few years now.
Aside from adding a pharmacy, it also spent nearly $4 billion to buy primary care provider One Medical. In August, the company added video telemedicine visits in all 50 states.
