Home medicine delivery by drone set to grow in 2022

[Kathleen Martin]

Zipline, a leading drone operator, will begin delivering prescription medicines to patients' homes in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, this year, helping usher in the long-anticipated era of routine drone drops.
Why it matters: Battery-operated drones could satisfy our demand for "instant delivery" in less than 15 minutes, while easing traffic congestion, improving safety and helping the environment.
The big picture: Drones routinely deliver medicine, food and sundries today in places like Australia, Finland and Africa.

• But the revolution has been playing out in slow motion in the U.S. while the Federal Aviation Administration works on rules to govern drone safety in our increasingly crowded skies.
• Drone delivery in the U.S. is poised to accelerate as companies like Zipline and Google-owned Wing push ahead with increasingly sophisticated trials with the FAA's blessing.

Driving the news: Zipline is set to announce Tuesday that it will partner with the pharmacy unit of Magellan Health to deliver prescriptions — including high-cost specialty medications — directly to patients' homes, Axios is first to report.

• The trial, which awaits the FAA's nod, will take place in and around Kannapolis, North Carolina, where Zipline has a distribution center serving nearby hospitals.
• Zipline recently started a delivery-by-drone pilot with Walmart, dropping packages of 4 pounds or less in customers' yards in rural Pea Ridge, Arkansas.
• The company plans a third distribution center in Salt Lake City, which will expand the number of communities it can serve.

What they're saying: "It only feels weird and sci-fi in the United States," Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo tells Axios. "In other countries, this is normal."

• Within a week of using drone delivery, the novelty wears off and people start taking the service for granted, he says: "Seven days to go from science fiction to entitlement"
• Chronically ill patients who can get their meds quickly and conveniently are less likely to visit the ER or need other high-cost interventions, which helps bring down the overall cost of health care, Magellan Rx Management CEO Mostafa Kamal tells Axios.

Where it stands: Logan, Australia, near Brisbane, is the drone delivery capital of the world, accounting for the bulk of the more than 140,000 deliveries to customers Wing completed in 2021.  
Continue reading: https://www.axios.com/home-medicine-drone-delivery-2022-86bacbbb-0c41-481c-bed7-7e094306aa0d.html