K M Ramya, L Rachana, Ranjita Kiran Naik, Rashmika Satish · 5 authors
Abstract: Medical product counterfeiting is one of the many major problems facing the healthcare sector. It is estimated that 10 to 30 percent of medical products sold are fake. Because they do not have access to quality healthcare, these issues are more prevalent in undeveloped and developing nations. As the healthcare supply chain is centralised and the procedure from the product's creation to its delivery to the user is opaque, it is challenging to identify counterfeit goods. As a result, the traceability of medicinal products becomes crucial. In addition to the difficulties of data privacy, data authenticity, and adaptability, traditional methods have not been very effective in resolving these problems. In this study, we reviewed several blockchain-based approaches for detecting fake medical items that employ the Ethereum blockchain, Hyperledger fabric, etc. The adoption of innovative ideas, like the inclusion of a QR code which enables customers to discover more about medical products are also studied. We also discuss the various architectures and techniques that are employed. The key challenges faced, and the research gaps are also analysed.
In the healthcare industry, providing a vital backbone for services is critical. The supply chain is a complex network that crosses organizational and geographical borders. In the healthcare business, counterfeit pills are one of the primary reasons for the harmful impact on human health and financial loss. Thus, pharmaceutical supply chains and end-to-end tracking systems are the recent research in healthcare. In this paper, the authors propose blockchain-based traceability of counterfeited drugs (BBTCD) that implements tracking of counterfeited drugs using smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. They offer a solution to fully decentralize the tracking by storing BBTCD on IPFS (inter planetary file system) to provide transparency and cost-effectiveness.
D Sivaganesan, A S Kareshmmaa, A K Sharan Shankar, Anitha Petricia B
The pharmaceutical industry's crucial task is to look after the medicines while they are being transported, by ensuring ideal storage conditions and keeping track of the complete medications sent to prevent risky scenarios. These three classifications are used by WHO: falsified, substandard, and unregistered/unlicensed. The need for sophisticated tools to identify fabricated pharmaceuticals will rise as criminals grow craftier. To identify phoney and substandard drugs, new technologies are continually being developed. A substantial lack of transparency in the current system makes it difficult for patients to understand the cost of acquired medications, making counterfeit drugs a prime issue. Moreover, if there are accusations of illegal or unethical behaviours, it could be difficult to look into supply chain tampering. The blockchain technology was employed. Two parties' transactions can be efficiently and permanently recorded using an open, distributed ledger like blockchain. Blockchains are transparent, decentralized, distributed, and unchangeable, which makes them an ideal solution for the problem of fake medications. This study proposes a mechanism for the safe distribution of medications throughout the whole supply chain. Each product in the chain can be moved between chain associates who have been confirmed using an event request-response approach. A product may be traced back to its source thanks to smart contracts, which are used to record all transactions between entities onto the blockchain. A DApp is made using the React Framework. On a local blockchain that Ganache provided, the smart contracts were put into action. The blockchain connection between the DApp and Web3.js is made possible by the Truffle framework. The outcomes of the studies show that our method is practical and marginally more secure than existing solutions.
Mahesh Kumar, Lavish Kumar, Jai Jai, Yogesh Sharma
Counterfeit drugs are a major and growing concern globally, particularly during pandemics. One of the reasons for this is the inefficiency of the supply chain system in the pharmaceutical industry, which can make it difficult to trace the ownership of drugs from manufacturer to wholesaler, distributor, and pharmacist before it reaches the customer. In this study, we have evaluated different proposed blockchain-based supply chain management systems. The system that uses Hyperledger Fabric ensures data sharing, storage, transparency, and traceability in every stage of the supply chain. Meanwhile, the Ethereum architecture makes use of smart contracts to manage the communication between sender and receiver. The primary aim of the research is to improve the safety of pharmaceutical products and streamline supply chain operations with the most effective architecture. In addition to the benefits of transparency and traceability that blockchain technology can provide, it can also help to improve the overall efficiency and security of the supply chain. For example, by using smart contracts, automated processes can be put in place for the transfer of ownership and payment for drugs, reducing the need for manual intervention and reducing the risk of errors or fraud. Additionally, by creating a tamper-proof record of all transactions, blockchain technology can provide an auditable trail of the movement of drugs through the supply chain, which can be helpful for regulatory compliance and quality assurance. Furthermore, blockchain technology can also support the implementation of new business models in the pharmaceutical industry such as digitalized provenance records and tokenization of drugs to provide more transparency, security, and trust for the customer. It's worth noting that implementing blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain will require collaboration and cooperation between stakeholders in the industry, including manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and regulators. With the right approach and collaboration, blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the way that the pharmaceutical industry operates, making the supply chain more efficient, secure, and reliable, while also helping to reduce the risk of counterfeit drugs and protect public health.
Counterfeit drugs have long been a major concern. In search of a solution, this study conducted a systematic literature review. Using an automated content analysis of pharmaceutical blockchains, this study identifies the (1) unique characteristics of smart contracts on blockchain platforms in the pharmaceutical supply chain, (2) role of smart contracts to combat counterfeit drugs, and (3) avenues for future studies. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed at the end of this paper.
Jochen Heussner, Michael Paul Kramer, Jon Henrich Hanf
Wine fraud and counterfeiting is a problem that spans from entry level wines to cult bottles. It poses significant challenges such as impacting consumer trust and causing financial losses. The study explores potential blockchain-based applications used to prevent wine fraud. Responding to the research questions regarding how blockchain technology can help prevent wine fraud and what potential benefits and limitations may exist in this context, we performed a literature review and conducted an exploratory use case analysis of over 100 solutions. Our findings unveiled that only a few operationalized use cases exist. These are predominantly based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are employed for verification of authenticity purposes. We also found that the adoption is at an early stage. While the benefits of using blockchain are promising, further research should be performed to address its potential limitations within the organizational, technical, as well as legal and regulatory realms.
Blockchain technology can reduce the need for intermediaries in various types of transactions by providing a decentralized and secure ledger that can be accessed and updated by all parties involved in the transaction. Clinical trials are essential for bringing new drugs and therapies to market, but the current clinical research process is often marred by inefficiencies, data inaccuracies, and a lack of transparency. The implementation of blockchain technology in clinical trials has the potential to address these challenges by providing a secure and transparent platform for data management. By leveraging the power of blockchain, healthcare providers can improve the integrity and accuracy of clinical trial data, enhance trust in the clinical research process, and ultimately improve patient outcomes. In this article, we propose the use of blockchain technology in clinical trials and explore its potential benefits for the healthcare. The implementation of a blockchain-based data management system for clinical trials holds significant potential to address several challenges associated with the current clinical research process. By improving the integrity and security of medical data, enhancing trust, and easing regulatory burden, such a system can promote the efficient and effective conduct of clinical trials. The adoption of a blockchain-based solution for clinical trial data management has the potential to optimize costs, contributing to the sustainability of healthcare services. It also provides a model for future research and development of blockchain-based solutions in the field of clinical research.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
Mahafuja Khatun, Ridwan Arefin Islam, Salekul Islam
In recent years, blockchain technology has been successfully used in many distributed environments where different stakeholders, who do not have any trust between them, interact with each other through a secured and transparent platform. The use of blockchain in healthcare insurance industry has not been studied methodically. In this study, we develop a blockchain based Secured and Automated Health Insurance Claim (B-SAHIC) processing system. First, we design an Entity-Relationship (ER) diagram identifying all actors with their respective data and relations between them. We also develop the business model and algorithms for all necessary steps. We implement the system in Hyperledger Fabric and deploy a smart contract to implement these algorithms. We introduce CouchDB to store the OffChain data where we store World-State Database. B-SAHIC provides a web-based portal for all actors who interact with the blockchain. Privacy of clients’ claim-related data is ensured by encrypting treatment-related data with a new key that is derived uniquely for each new submission done of clients’ personal documents. We have also deployed Hyperledger Explorer, a user-friendly web application tool for monitoring the health state of each node participating on the blockchain network. We have studied the performance of B-SAHIC for two to six peer nodes. Moreover, our performance study shows that B-SAHIC is fast and scalable. In our study, the average query latency is decreased from 0.07 second (for two peer nodes) to 0.02 second (for six peer nodes) in case of 1300 queries per second while the average transaction latency remains unchanged (around 3.5 seconds) for 300 transactions per second. Moreover, B-SAHIC consumes minimum resources, around 350MB only for two peer nodes. We believe that the development process of this blockchain based platform can be applicable for the automation of other insurance industry too.
With the rising competition among pharmaceutical companies, the current drug supply chain market has become more competitive with high-quality product segments. The rapid growth of internet pharmacies has made it more difficult to standardize drug safety throughout in complex distributed supply chain networks. There is a high chance of introducing counterfeit drugs which are almost the same as the original pharmaceuticals. Due to the lack of transparency the possibility of tampering with drugs in the current manual and web-based pharmaceutical systems is extremely high. Throughout the past recent years, these counterfeit drugs were recognized as the one of major worldwide problems. This situation is worse in developing countries. The unavailability of verifying the legitimacy of drug suppliers and poor mechanisms to trace the drugs were identified as critical points that need to be resolved. SUPPLYDECK comes as a solution for the critical scenario mentioned. This solution addresses the above problems using blockchain technology, as a distributed digital ledger that ensures transparency, traceability, and security. This can show promise for solving some global supply chain management problems using smart contracts and user authentication along with IoT technology and machine learning concepts that are critically examined with this potential application.
Timely supply of quality pharmaceutical products is seen as not only an important aspect of healthcare system but also a matter of national security. Taking into account the social orientation of the pharmaceutical business, states impose special requirements for the safety, effectiveness, quality, conditions for the sale, transportation and storage of medicinal products. These requirements are not always fulfilled, which gives room for the technology to step in and assist. The aim of this paper is to analyze how smart contracts can help in addressing pharmaceutical supply chain issues with a focus on Belarus, which is the first country in the world to explicitly state that smart contracts are legal. This research uses a case study methodology to examine the potential for implementation of smart contracts in the supply chain of pharmaceutical products, the barriers for that and the possible influence of smart contracts on various stakeholders. Data collection was organized through document review and expert interviews. Results indicated that there are weak spots in the current pharmaceutical supply chain process, such as different kinds of errors in supporting documentation, quality defects and failures in climate control systems. Some vulnerable points in supply chain could be eliminated by smart contracts, for example, faults in maintaining temperature regime during transportation. The study also reveals a number of challenges for implementing smart contracts, such as resistance of users, bureaucracy, costs, the necessity for a lot of participants to be a part of a single network. In this regard, the study went on to propose a pilot project for implementing smart contracts in pharmaceutical supply chain.
This paper explores problems of pharmaceutical supply chains, such as drug counterfeiting, and the opportunities of using digital technologies to overcome them. It also evaluates the risks associated with the use of digital technologies. Expert interviews were conducted with pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders in the first step. The data obtained was assessed through qualitative content analysis. In addition to the lack of transparency, strong individual interests of the supply chain actors and different implementation levels of digitisation were revealed. It is also noticeable that the industry is still paper-oriented. Nevertheless, the chosen experts are optimistic about the increased use of digital technologies. Combining blockchain with other technologies, such as IoT and AI, can improve efficiency, traceability, and trust in pharmaceutical supply chains. A digitalised supply chain concept is developed based on these technologies, enhancing transparency and information availability in the supply chain. In addition, communication and processes along the entire pharmaceutical supply chain are optimised.
Saqib Ali, Waseem Anwar, Basim Juma Salem, Mohammed Al Dhuhli
In recent years, blockchain technology has emerged and gained considerable attention due to its reliability and secure data sharing capabilities in various domains such as supply chain management, finance, the internet of things, agriculture, food, healthcare, and pharmaceutical industries. The track of pharmaceutical supply chains has become more critical in the health society in any country or region to ensure the proper trackability and safety of medicines. With time, it has become more complex and costly to track thousands of various medical products. Without a proper supply chain system, there is a possibility of the availability of counterfeit drugs. Building a traceability system over a blockchain platform would provide a trusted and secured method to track and trace the medical supply chain from the manufacturer to the patient. This work proposes a traceability system for pharmaceutical products in Oman using blockchain technology to maintain the integrity of the data of such sensitive valuable products. In addition to this, different pharmaceutical workflows have been designed and implemented using the Ethereum blockchain platform.
Multi-stakeholder and organizational involvement is an integral part of the medicine supply chain. Keeping track of the activities associated with medical products is difficult when the system is complex. Their complexity limits transparency and data provenance. Deficiencies within existing supply chains result in the counterfeiting of drugs, illegal imports, and inefficient operations. Due to these limitations, product integrity is compromised, resulting in product wastage. Visibility of the entire product supply chain is crucial for the pharmaceutical industry in terms of product safety and reduction of manufacturing costs. The Cloud-based Blockchain-powered architecture of the system provides a platform for addressing the need of pharma-material traceability, data storage, privacy of data, and quality assurance. This framework comprises of the identification of activities through tagging, information sharing in a secure environment; cloud-based storage using an off-chain Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and an on-chain couch DB; and access to this information that is controlled by the system's regulator. Electronic drug records will be accessed via a smart contract in Hyperledger Blockchain. The system assists in identifying false and cross-border products through the manufacturer and country of origin. A scan will identify counterfeit medications, showing that they are unauthorized products which may pose a risk to patients. Our experiments demonstrated the efficiency and usability of the design platform. Finally, we benchmarked the system using Hyperledger Caliper.
Despite the network and internet technologies development, cases of counterfeit medicine still exist and an unreliable pharmaceutical supply chain infrastructure is one of the key factors behind drug counterfeiting. Before reaching the patient, medicines are transferred from suppliers to wholesalers, distributors, and pharmacists. Currently, information is not exchanged between supply chain management systems. Therefore, there is no visibility on the drug supply chain. Drug counterfeiting issue has become more important during the side spread of coronavirus disease due to the high popularity of this disease’s vaccine. Even though this vaccine can help millions of people to eliminate coronavirus, the fake vaccine might be killable for them. This paper is proposing a solution by using blockchain technology for developing a secure pharmaceutical supply chain management system. This technology can add visibility, traceability, security, and transparency to the supply chain system. It is considered that to store the transactions, a permissioned blockchain will be used for this system, and only trusted parties will be permissioned to push data to the blockchain. By the end of this paper, a secure blockchain-based drug supply chain management system will be proposed by the researcher.
The Blockchain technology uses different type of database that transact data in blocks and then chained each data blocks. When data fills one block, it is chained the same data onto previous block therefore, all the data blocks are stored in chronological order. The blockchain technology can help to ensure that data in supply chain is reliable, accurate and can be shared with all stakeholders without any manipulation. It makes supply chain more transparent and end-to-end digital visibility of data source. Blockchain is stringent technology which fill the gap between stakeholders by providing transparent unmanipulated and truthful data in supply chain. There are many initiatives has been taken by multiple regulatory bodies with partnering with supply chain stakeholders including pharmaceutical manufacturer, distributors and dispensers. In USA, Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory body Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) initiated pilot program in 2019 with the partnership of leading pharmaceuticals distributors to authenticating saleable returns to distributor from supply chain partners. DSCSA used MediLedger blockchain interoperable technology for process evaluation and it robustness for mitigating risk of drug counterfeiting possibilities in supply chain. The DSCSA found that pilot project was successful and results were astonishing. Later it was declared that blockchain technology can also be used for meeting DSCSA’s 2023 Act for unit level traceability.
Abhijeet Ghadge, Michael Bourlakis, Sachin Kamble, Stefan Seuring
Research on Blockchain implementation in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chains (PSC) is lacking despite its strong potential to overcome conventional supply chain challenges. Thus, this study aims to provide critical insight into the nexus between Blockchain and PSC and further build a conceptual framework for implementation within the pharmaceutical industry. Following a systematic literature review and text mining approach, 65 interdisciplinary articles published between 2010 and 2021 were studied to capture the decade long developments. Descriptive and thematic analysis showcases nascent developments of Blockchain in PSC. The drivers and barriers to adoption, implementation stages, and applications identified through the thematic analysis guide in setting the agenda for future research, primarily focussing on the use of Blockchain for drug counterfeiting, recall issues, along with other sector-specific challenges such as patient privacy, regulations and clinical trials. Research on Blockchain for PSC has been slow compared to other sectors, but has accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic. Identified influential factors, implementation process and apparent applications are expected to influence researchers and practitioners in developing a roadmap for adopting Blockchain in the pharmaceutical industry. The proposed conceptual framework is novel and provides valuable directions to producers, regulators and governments to implement Blockchain in the pharmaceutical industry.
Supply chain management in healthcare sector plays significant role in the lives of people. Presence of intermediaries and lack of traceability has lured it towards drug counterfeiting, which reduces drug efficacy, thus hampering patients' trust and putting their lives in danger. Blockchain has emerged as a groundbreaking technology which provide a system that is immutable and transparent without the requirement of a trusted third party. This paper depicts how blockchain can provide a solution to reduce drug counterfeit in the pharmaceutical supply chain. This is achieved by creating a Blockchain Network in which each participant and the drug is registered to maintain transparency of transactions among all the participants. Realtime transfer of ownership in the blockchain creates all-round visibility among the registered participants to retrieve information like the current owner, timestamp of ownership transfer and authenticity of drugs. This paper implements PharmaChain for real-time traceability and trackability information of drugs from end-to-end of the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Counterfeit drugs are an immense threat for the pharmaceutical industry worldwide due to limitations of supply chain. Our proposed solution can overcome many challenges as it will trace and track the drugs while in transit, give transparency along with robust security and will ensure legitimacy across the supply chain. It provides a reliable certification process as well. Fabric architecture is permissioned and private. Hyperledger is a preferred framework over Ethereum because it makes use of features like modular design, high efficiency, quality code and open-source which makes it more suitable for B2B applications with no requirement of cryptocurrency in Hyperledger Fabric. QR generation and scanning are provided as a functionality in the application instead of bar code for its easy accessibility to make it more secure and reliable. The objective of our solution is to provide substantial solutions to the supply chain stakeholders in record maintenance, drug transit monitoring and vendor side verification.
N. Gopikarani, B. Gayathri, S.S. Praja, Sneha Sridharan
Counterfeit drugs are without a doubt becoming a greater hazard to consumers and the pharmaceutical sector. As a result, real-time visibility of drug manufacturing and management is required. The proposed system uses Ethereum blockchain as the main technology. The primary advantage of blockchain technology is that the transactions are maintained in immutable digital ledger format and it may be read easily without jeopardizing the users’ security and privacy. In our proposed system, the admin validates and adds the manufacturers. The manufacturer after registering and logging in can perform tasks like adding the drug and seller list. The seller can place order to the manufacturer which the manufacturer can accept or reject. The seller can update status of order of accepted orders to delivered. The customer can view the order details by entering the serial number on the drug package. Any transaction or exchange that occurs in the network is recorded in the chain. It functions similarly to other networks, but blockchain technology is distinguished by the fact that no data can be removed or altered by anyone in the network. No changes to the network can be made unless it has been validated by all of the network’s authorized users. All the information stored can be read by anybody so to incorporate more security, AES has been used to store data in the blockchain. The use of AES encryption technique distinguishes this system from all the existing implementations. Thus, this makes it easy to trace to the exact point in the supply chain and detect any counterfeit drugs in movement. As an extension to the drug counterfeit prevention system a Drug Recommendation System is also performed using the ensemble model with a combination of Random Forest and Logistic Regression for sentiment analysis training. Furthermore, when compared to the existing Linear SVM model, which has an accuracy of 90.39%, the suggested model has the best accuracy of 93.31%. Using the obtained sentiment for each drug, the drug is predicted accurately for the specified medical condition.
Pharmaceutical supply chains are complex structures that include various participants. Furthermore, blockchains are viewed as a promising solution to increase effectiveness and overcome some of the main challenges in these supply chains-especially lack of trust. The European Union (EU) set strict rules in the domain of pharmaceutical supply chains in order to protect patient safety and public health. In addition, blockchains bring legal requirements. Among these requirements, personal data protection is of utmost importance. This is because, as has been argued for years, blockchains and the EU data protection regime are in conflict by their natures. However, it is also claimed that when rightly designed and combined with other technological solutions, blockchains potentially offer great opportunities to enhance data protection. Nevertheless, potential for blockchains in the pharmaceutical supply chain is not yet been realized as most use cases are in the proof of concept or pilot stage. This article examines the debates surrounding blockchains and data protection. The goal is to draw constructive conclusions on whether blockchain solutions can be designed in data protection-enhancing ways and whether this might help realize the potential for blockchain in pharmaceutical supply chains-particularly by creating trust. For this purpose, the example of an ongoing EU-funded innovative research project called PharmaLedger as a case study to concretize its theoretical examinations is examined. This project is chosen because it gathers a wide variety of stakeholders representing different interests and aims to create a digital trust ecosystem in health care by providing a widely trusted platform that supports the design and adoption of blockchain-enabled healthcare solutions while accelerating the delivery of innovation that benefits the entire ecosystem from manufacturers to patients.
Blockchain has a number of built-in functions, including a distributed ledger, shared storage, verification, encryption, and immutability, and it has progressed from speculation to realistic implementations in industries including healthcare. Without the need for a central body, blockchain technology allows for a transparent and distributed setting. One of the fields where blockchain is considered to hold a lot of promise is healthcare. Data analysis, which has the potential to merge disparate networks and increase Electronic Health Record (EHR) accuracy, should be prioritised in order to transform healthcare. Blockchain technologies can help with access management, data sharing, and maintaining an audit trail of medical operations. It may also be used to help with opioid prescribing and supply chain management, as well as risk data identification, access monitoring, data storage, and the management of a patient audit trail. The healthcare system is changing to allow for a more patient-centred approach. The healthcare networks based on the blockchain may increase security and resiliency by giving patients control of their data. The biggest problems with prescription protection in the illicit medicine supply chain are related to how the medicines are made in the first place. Since tracing the correct and active pharmaceutical ingredients during actual manufacturing is complex, identifying medications that do not include the expected active ingredients can result in patient injury or death. Blockchain’s unique features enable it to provide a basis for full medication tracking through origin till end customer, and the ability to detect fake medications. This chapter covers the introduction to blockchain technology, its background concepts, and importance of blockchain in the domain of healthcare. A framework for the medical supply chain using blockchain has been proposed. The chapter concludes with various research challenges in the domain of blockchain medical supply chain along with the case study.