Securing Drug Supply Chain Management Using Blockchain

Blockchain technology presents numerous unique opportunities to enhance “drug supply chain management” in secure, efficient, and interoperable ways. Blockchain-powered drug supply chain networks have widespread implications for the stakeholders by reducing the cost of current intermediate parties. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have specific areas where more than 30% of counterfeit medicines are prevalent in the market. Pharmaceutical supply chains include many stages and stakeholders from research labs, drug manufacturers, regulators, packaging, distribution, marketing, hospitals, pharmacies, and the patient. As these supply chains are complex, illicit wholesalers take advantage of under-regulated medicine importation leading to disparities in quality healthcare access to people in developing countries. Capitalizing on this technology may connect fragmented systems such as electronic health records (EHRs), clinical data exchange, access controls, dependencies on governance, and clinical supply chain to secure drug quality and patient information. Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) has been deemed to reduce complexity, enable trustless collaboration, and record immutable audit trails of all interactions thus ensuring transparency. However, blockchain is still emerging and has not reached its panache, giving rise to several technical, organizational, and economic challenges that must be addressed before integrating into global healthcare. This chapter discusses the role of blockchain in drug supply chain management, its application and infrastructure requirements in catering to the biomedical system, and the issues and challenges involved. This chapter also introduces current pharmaceutical supply chain management pioneers who offer a solution to drug counterfeiting and drug trafficking by ensuring transparency, traceability, and demonstrated chain of custody.