PharmaChain: A Blockchain to Ensure Counterfeit Free Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

TL;DR

This paper proposes a blockchain-based transparent pharmaceutical supply chain system to combat counterfeiting, improve traceability, and enhance trust among stakeholders, with a proof-of-concept demonstrating its effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel DLT-based architecture for pharmaceutical supply chains and evaluates its efficiency and scalability compared to existing solutions.

Findings

Enhanced traceability of medicines from manufacturer to consumer

Improved transparency reduces counterfeiting risks

Demonstrated scalability and efficiency of the proposed system

Abstract

Access to essential medication is a primary right of every individual in all developed, developing and underdeveloped countries. This can be fulfilled by pharmaceutical supply chains (PSC) in place which will eliminate the boundaries between different organizations and will equip them to work collectively to make medicines reach even the remote corners of the globe. Due to multiple entities, which are geographically widespread, being involved and very complex goods and economic flows, PSC is very difficult to audit and resolve any issues involved. This has given rise to many issues, including increased threats of counterfeiting, inaccurate information propagation throughout the network because of data fragmentation, lack of customer confidence and delays in distribution of medication to the place in need. Hence, there is a strong need for robust PSC which is transparent to all parties involved and in which the whole journey of medicine from manufacturer to consumer can be tracked and traced easily. This will not only build safety for the consumers, but will also help manufacturers to build confidence among consumers and increase sales. In this article, a novel Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based transparent supply chain architecture is proposed and a proof-of-concept is implemented. Efficiency and scalability of the proposed architecture is evaluated and compared with existing solutions.