Ensuring Provenance and Traceability in a Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Using Blockchain and Internet of Things

Abstract

Risks involved in the pharmaceutical drug supply chain are complaints and traceability, which result in the circulation of counterfeit and deteriorated drugs that are adverse to human life. During the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling this global scourge became even more acute and urgent. The integrity of records with traditional centralized database is expensive and existing visibility technologies face challenges to ensure the traceability of drugs. The integration of novel blockchain technology and Internet of Things into the pharmaceutical supply chain helps in real-time data access as well as better record management. Our chapter discusses the pharmaceutical ecosystem, study on existing visibilty technologies, and the temperature sensors in the cold supply chain; many case report on the issue of counterfeit drugs and emphasis on the distributed digital ledger technology along with the Internet of Things provides cryptographically secure, transparent, tamper-proof blocks that pause the entry of counterfeit drugs and improve traceability.