Receive Your Aspirin by Drone

CHICAGO—Starting next month, Walgreens, along with FedEx and Wing, a U.S. drone operator, will provide the first-of-its-kind drone delivery service in the United States, reports Bloomberg.

The first drug store deliveries will be to residents of Christiansburg, Virginia. The three companies aim to go beyond the small-scale delivery demonstrations that have occurred so far in the U.S., typically under controlled environments conducted over short ranges.

“Wing has spent the last seven years developing a delivery drone and navigation system for this purpose,” said James Ryan Burgess, Wing CEO. “By delivering small packages directly to homes through the air in minutes, and making a wide range of medicine, food and other products available to customers, we will demonstrate what we expect safer, faster, cleaner local delivery to look like in the future.”

The partnership demonstrates the rapid maturation of the drone industry; although, the Federal Aviation Administration is still in the process of developing regulations for drones. In the past, Wing has demonstrated how the delivery system would work, and in one Virginia demo, lowered a Popsicle to a toddler last year. But the project with Walgreens and FedEx will deliver actual merchandise to customers on a far bigger scale, which required Wing to get waivers for longer-range delivery flights.

The partnership between Wing, Walgreens and FedEx has benefits for all three in the race to exploit the drone economy. Walgreens, like other large drugstore chains, has seen sales chipped away by Amazon and other online retailers. Amazon has also moved into the prescription drug business, offering patients conveniently packaged pills through its PillPack unit.

Drug chains have begun offering competing services to defend themselves. Walgreens offers a delivery service for prescriptions and has partnered with FedEx to use its stores as package drop-off points. It’s also partnered with Kroger Co. on a pilot program for customers to pick up groceries at Walgreens stores. Working with Wing gives FedEx leverage to compete against UPS, which is using small flying devices for revenue-generating health-care deliveries, such as blood samples, within a hospital campus in North Carolina.

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