Strengthening Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Surveillance: A Blockchain-Based Counterfeit Drug Alert Framework

Abstract

This paper proposes a blockchain-based framework to monitor drugs and trigger alerts to safeguard stakeholders when drugs are reported to be faulty. The proposed system uses a decentralised approach, enhancing the overall transparency and security. The framework identifies counterfeit drugs and reports the issue across various stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain, including regulatory departments, hospitals, and manufacturers. The alerts regarding contaminated or counterfeit drugs are ensured due to the integration of blockchain and distributed ledger. Furthermore, the recorded data are secure, traceable, and immutable. The results demonstrate that the framework successfully registers the departments and sends the alert across the departments associated with the blockchain. Also, the results confirm the feasibility of using blockchain to create a transparent and robust counterfeit drug alert network, providing a reliable solution for pharmaceutical safety management.