Magellan Health to kick off drone delivery for prescription meds

Magellan Health's pharmacy benefits management division plans to roll out drone delivery for some members' medications later this year, the managed-care company said Tuesday.

Phoenix-based Magellan Health, which was acquired by Centene last month, has partnered with Zipline, a company that develops and operates drones to deliver medical products. Magellan Rx Management will deliver prescriptions to members at home using Zipline drones. The program will start this year with specialty drugs for members with chronic and complex conditions.

The initiative, pending final approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration, will focus first on Magellan Rx members in North Carolina, according to a news release. Magellan Rx will operate the program from an existing Zipline distribution center in Kannapolis, North Carolina, which will serve customers in a 7,800 square mile service area.

Drone deliveries could ease access barriers for members with complex health conditions, said Mostafa Kamal, Magellan Rx's chief executive officer.

Members will be able to schedule a 15-minute delivery window for their medications. Since members will be able to schedule deliveries for when they're available, that can help to address concerns members may have about medications being lost or stolen in the mail, while also making medication access more convenient, according to Kamal."It enables the patients to have more control over their schedules," Kamal said in an interview. "No longer wasting time waiting for their prescription delivery or waiting for a truck to show up."

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Medications will be stored at Zipline's distribution center, Kamal said. Magellan pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will load medications on to the drones for a delivery, and the drones are tracked and monitored from launch to drop-off using Zipline's software. The drones drop off packages with accuracy of roughly two parking lot spaces, he added.

It won't cost members more to receive drugs via drone.

"When you think about the total cost-of-care benefits of keeping patients adherent to their medications, I think ... that will more than make this a positive [return on investment]," Kamal said. "We'll be tracking those things to ensure that we prove out our hypothesis."

Magellan Rx plans to track medication adherence and request feedback on patient experience during its first phase of implementation, which will focus on delivering specialty medications. The division plans to expand to other states as Zipline sets up new distribution centers and works with the FAA for approval, according to Kamal.

Kamal declined to share financial details of its partnership with Zipline.

Magellan Rx is the first pharmacy benefits manager to deliver specialty and traditional medications through Zipline, according to the news release. Zipline, which has raised $483 million since 2014, initially launched with delivering blood and other medical supplies to remote locations in Rwanda and Ghana. It has since partnered with U.S. health systems.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Novant Health tapped Zipline to deliver personal protective equipment and medical supplies to its facilities. Walmart in 2020 partnered with Quest Diagnostics and drone company DroneUp to experiment with at-home delivery of COVID-19 tests.

Drones have also been used to deliver lab samples, donor organs, automated external defibrillators and vaccines. Healthcare organizations and logistics companies testing such services have said drones could potentially deliver medical supplies more efficiently, without being slowed down by traffic and other roadway delays.

So far, drone programs are limited by the distance that they can cover, said Jamie Kowalski, a healthcare supply chain consultant. The organizations most likely to be testing such programs establish defined areas that cover enough consumers, since drones aren't at a stage where they can transport supplies for long distances or across states.

Depending on the region, time of day and how many supplies need to be delivered, drones could offer benefits in consistency and speed.

"A lot of the ways [supplies] are being transported now are almost all by vehicle," Kowalski said. Particularly in metropolitan areas, such deliveries can be slowed down by traffic. "Maybe a drone is a more efficient way."