Design of a Drug Smart Traceability System in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain using Dynamic Non-Fungible Tokens

Abstract

Current Drug Supply Chain (DSC) includes numerous independent participants with assorted interests. Today, DSC is confronted by several serious challenges related to shipping, special storage, traceability, and expiration, as well as ensuring sustainable access and availability of essential medicines. Furthermore, the number of counterfeit drugs has increased radically, causing thousands of individuals to be affected by poisoning and medical negligence. To address these issues, this research develops an effective track and trace model, calledLotTrace which leverages the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain Technology (BCT) and Non-Interchangeable Tokens (NITs) to trace drug lots from manufacturing process to consumption. NIT is a distinctive digital identifier of physical and virtual assets logged on a BCT to attest to proprietorship and legitimacy. LotTrace uses smart contracts and Hyperledger technology for dependable and effective traceability of pharmaceutical products. The lot details are updated across the chain, and erstwhile information is continuously logged in the ledger blocks. It instigates traceability by allocating inimitable identifiers to drug lots and logs incidents and signposts, providing an end-to-end traceability that allows partakers to authenticatethe genuineness and provenance of the drug products. LotTrace mints virtual tokens to digitize the metadata such as the certifications, present owner, current location, environmental conditions of a drug lot. After gathering these essential data from the drug manufacturer, metadata will be included based on shipping environmental conditions to mint Dynamic NIT (dNIT). This information is recorded in the BitTorrent File System (BTFS) to build a real-world storage infrastructure. Ratified stakeholders can access this information using the smart contracts. This work creates an NIT smart contract on the ERC1155 standard using the Remix Integrated Development Environment (IDE). LotTrace exploits BTFS to solve the issue of processing big documents on the Web 3.0 ecosystem and guarantees that the information are immutably stored in a secured way. This systemrecords the drug attributes and its appropriate metadata during itslife cycle from manufacturing to consumption. The research also provides testing details and evaluates the feasibility of tracing solution. This study evaluate the effectiveness of LotTrace system in terms of the cost of system transactions.