Combating Drug Counterfeiting by Tracing Ownership Transfer Using Blockchain Technology

Abstract

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.