Nuro Autonomous Vehicles Deliver CVS Pharmacy Prescriptions in the Greater Houston

Imagine your pharmacy prescription delivered home by a four-wheeled robot. It’s a reality in Greater Houston where autonomous vehicle (AV) manufacturer Nuro teamed up with CVS Pharmacy to test prescription delivery starting this month.

Prescriptions and essentials of the customers of a CVS pharmacy located in Bellaire, Texas in the Houston metro area are now shipped in unmanned Nuro R2 AVs.

Customers in the pilot area who are placing prescription orders via CVS.com or the CVS Pharmacy app in the pilot area can choose the autonomous delivery option, and add other non-prescription items to their order.

Nuro R2

For this test, deliveries are free of charge to CVS Pharmacy customers. To ensure the security of their prescriptions, customers need to confirm their identification to unlock the R2, Nuro’s custom-built delivery bot when it arrives curbside at their home.

“We are excited to expand into an entirely new vertical: health,” said Dave Ferguson, Nuro’s Co-Founder and President. “Through our partnership with CVS, we hope to make it easier for customers to get medicine, prescriptions, and the other things they need delivered directly to their homes.”

For Ryan Rumbarger, Senior Vice President of Store Operations, CVS Health this test represents new opportunities to respond to an increase in demand for prescription delivery. “We want to give our customers more choice in how they can quickly access the medications they need when it’s not convenient for them to visit one of our pharmacy locations.”

According to California-based company Nuro, over 76% of people in the United States live within eight kilometres of a CVS Pharmacy today. Every day, CVS serves 4.5 million customers across the country. That’s more people than the entire population of Los Angeles, USA’s second-largest city. No wonder why Nuro sees a great potential in this test.

Photos: Nuro