Cloud-based blockchain technology to identify counterfeits

Abstract

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.

Enhancing Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Resilience: A Comprehensive Review of Visibility and Demand Forecasting

“…However, a significant portion of the literature treats this issue primarily as a proof of concept, lacking a concrete framework or approach for implementing blockchain to address the challenge. The literature reveals that the use of blockchain in drug traceability meets a crucial need: facilitating the secure sharing of data between the different players in the pharmaceutical supply chain [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. This approach aims to improve communication and collaboration between the stakeholders involved, from production to distribution to points of sale.…”

“…The stakeholders interact with smart contracts and access the decentralized storage system and on-chain resources through software applications (DApps). The authors in [42] proposed a cloud-based blockchain system using Hyperledger Fabric. Indeed, the objective is to accelerate pharmaceutical supply chain safety by monitoring and tracing the process.…”

Digital Transformation of Medical Libraries

“…Furthermore, blockchain technology also aids in combating financial fraud and counterfeit drugs, which are issues that plague the healthcare industry and impede the delivery of effective medical services (Mani et al, 2022;Zoughalian et al, 2022). Charanya et al (2020) developed SeFra, a secure framework to manage electronic health records, ensuring their confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity via blockchain technology.…”

Operationalizing transparency in supply chains using a systematic literature review and graph theoretic approach

“…Dairy and pharmaceutical supply chain are more prominent due to their immediate impact on end customers' health. Thereby, case studies on dairy supply chains (Khanna et al, 2022;Casino et al, 2021;Varavallo et al, 2022) and pharmaceutical supply chains (Abdallah and Nizamuddin, 2023;Liu et al, 2023;Mani et al, 2022;Haji et al, 2021) has been on the rise in recent literature. Montecchi et al (2021) and Shoaib et al (2023) in their bibliometric analysis highlight major areas of future research related to supply chain transparency.…”

“…, 2022) and pharmaceutical supply chains (Abdallah and Nizamuddin, 2023; Liu et al. , 2023; Mani et al. , 2022; Haji et al.…”