Adoption of Blockchain Technology in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain to fight Counterfeit Medicine Market

Abstract

Blockchain Technology (BT) is recognized as a technology with multiple applications in many industries due to the nature of its utilization. In the pharmaceutical industry, an effective supply chain is crucial to mitigate the counterfeit medicine market, which is currently a big challenge, especially for low or middle-income countries. This research investigates the possibility of implementing blockchain technology solutions in Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry by introducing blockchain Application Software. The pharmaceutical industry and General Practitioners from hospitals and clinics were interviewed in the public and private sectors to understand this possibility. Data coding was conducted on the data gathered from the interviews, and from these codes, categories were extracted, these categories were then further refined to extract the final themes. Finally, the paper discusses that based on the need of the current situation, the proposed BT system would present a solution for making the pharmaceutical supply chain more transparent.