Industry giants UPS and CVS are teaming up to deliver prescription medicine via drones.
Bala Ganesh, vice president of UPS Advanced Technology Group, told Cheddar Thursday that the shipping and pharmacy companies worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration to make deliveries to retirement communities in Florida using Matternet M2 drones.
"These are ongoing discussions with the FAA," Ganesh said. "We definitely worked with them on getting those appropriate approvals to get us up and running in Phase 1."
He said the air delivery service rollout in multiple phases begins next week and deliveries will be dropped off at a pickup location near the retirement community. Phase 2 of the service will allow the drones to drop off prescriptions right into a customer's backyard.
"We've got teams on site, right now, doing the appropriate work that needs to be done to plan the process to get up and flying next week," he added.
Ganesh hopes to expand this service to more states after it gets off the ground in Florida.
"I think our focus is going to be getting this up and running and flying, and then from there we can think about how we can expand," he said.
