Oct 22, 2019

UPS drone fleet expands services to CVS and others

Marisa Fernandez

a medical professional opening a UPS dron epackage — Medical supplies delivery via UPS drone. Photo: UPS

UPS announced Monday that it's expanding drone-delivery services to include CVS Pharmacy, Kaiser Permanente, wholesale pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen and the University of Utah health system.

The state of play: UPS is hitting the health care business on all sides, from patients to providers and suppliers — all of whom would value faster deliveries on lab testing, prescriptions and medical supplies.

Details: Earlier this month, UPS received Federal Aviation Administration's approval to operate a commercial drone fleet that will carry small metal boxes. UPS expects to see these expansions through by Q4 of this year.

For CVS, the drones will carry prescriptions and retail products from stores to customers' homes.
At the University of Utah's WakeMed, they would transport health care supplies, medical instruments and documents.
Kaiser Permanente plans to use UPS' drones to deliver supplies between buildings at several medical campuses.
AmerisourceBergen will use them to transport pharmaceuticals, supplies and records to qualifying medical campuses.

What to watch: It's still uncertain how many drones this will involve. Overall, UPS expects the unmanned aircrafts to cut down a 30-minute truck drive to 3 minutes and 15 seconds.

Go deeper: UPS receives approval to fly commercial drones

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UPS drone fleet expands services to CVS and others

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