Blockchain technology looks set to substantially enhance both the security and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical and life sciences sector logistics operations across Asia and worldwide.
Specifically, it should provide tighter tracking and tracing capabilities to boost that industry’s ongoing battle to reduce the widespread counterfeiting of products and improve the overall efficiency of stock management.
Those, at least, are some of the claims made in various recent reports about the potential benefits of using blockchain to help manage pharmaceutical and life sciences industry supply chains and by the growing number of organizations now planning or actually launching solutions designed to achieve those objectives.
The basic case for implementing blockchain technology in the life sciences sector was outlined in a report called In Blockchain We Trust: Transforming the Life Sciences Supply Chain, published earlier this year by global professional services company Accenture.
“One of the most complex life sciences supply chain challenges has been the ability to effectively track the origin of a product (or therapy) from raw materials to the finished product. Despite the various efforts of full chain of custody systems that exist today, the fragmentation of systems between trading partners opens the risk for fraud,” the firm stated.
Blockchain technology provided an ideal solution to that problem, claimed the report, given that no single organization was responsible for provenance. It also enabled the idea of a ‘digital passport’ for a product, containing all relevant information for each component or ingredient, including instructions and patient adherence information from the packaging.
Similar points were made in the Blockchain in Logistics trend report produced by global logistics group DHL, researched in conjunction with Accenture, which included the initial findings on a working prototype developed by those two companies to track pharmaceuticals from the point of origin to the consumer.
The report claimed that the project illustrated how blockchain could be used to capture all logistics activities relating to an item of medication – from production to purchase – and ensure that information was made “secure, transparent and immediately available.”
The underlying aim, it stated, was to show that pharmaceutical products had come from legitimate manufacturers, were not counterfeit, and had been correctly handled throughout their journey from origin to consumer.
To achieve that objective, explained the report, the partners had established a blockchain-based track-and-trace serialization (the process of assigning a unique identity, for example a serial number, to each sealable unit) prototype comprising a global network of nodes across six geographies. That system, it added, “comprehensively documented each step that a pharmaceutical product took on its way to the store shelf and eventually the consumer.”
Similar points were made in an online article published earlier this year by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), a multinational business services provider, as a follow-up to its publication late last year of a report examining ‘How blockchain could strengthen the pharmaceutical supply chain.’
In addition to confirming the role that technology could play in combatting the counterfeiting of products, the PwC article also highlighted how blockchain could show if storage conditions had been compromised.
“At every stage of the process, barcodes or smart tags could be scanned and recorded onto a blockchain ledger system which would record and create an audit trail of the drug journey from excipient (a pharmacologically inert, adhesive substance used to bind the contents of a pill or tablet) through to packaged product. This would be visible to all authorized parties in real time,” wrote PwC.
That shared audit trail, continued the article, would mean that the pharmacist or patient could immediately tell if the drug had been compromised at any point in its journey and choose whether to accept or reject it.
“Additionally, there would be huge benefits for stock management. Whenever a drug is dispensed, the stock levels would automatically be updated on the ledger allowing drugs to be reordered before they run low. This would reduce wastage as well as the amount of time spent monitoring stock,” it added.
The Accenture report also specifically identified cold chain logistics as a particular sector of the pharmaceutical and life sciences market where blockchain technology could help improve the integrity of supply chain operations.
“When applied to the cold chain, blockchain, combined with technologies like IIoT (industrial internet of things), can create secure documentation of storage temperatures at every point in a product’s journey,” explained Accenture.
“This enables supply chain managers and executives to identify potential temperature excursions and other efficiencies across the end-to-end supply chain. Additional opportunities exist to complement blockchains with artificial intelligence, for example, machine learning, to detect potential specialty logistics issues.”
Meanwhile, a number of developments involving the actual application of blockchain technology to better manage pharmaceutical and other life science sector supply chains have been announced over the last six months.
Late last year, for example, Switzerland-headquartered SophiaTX, an open-source platform established to integrate blockchain with SAP and other Enterprise systems, announced its intention to work with Kita Logistics, a major international provider of pharma and healthcare logistics solutions, on the development of a track-and-trace solution for the transportation of pharmaceutical products and medicines.
“The co-innovation partnership will see both companies work together to develop a detailed use of case for the use of blockchain transactions to transport pharmaceuticals; design a specific blockchain solution for the industry with connectivity to existing ERP and supply chain applications; and develop the capability to record data from IoT (internet of things) sensors and other devices to monitor transportation conditions through the supply chain,” explained SophiaTX.
More recently, One Network Enterprises, a US-based global provider of a multi-party digital network platform, announced a new cross-industry chain-of-custody solution built on its Real Time Value Network (RTVN) and using blockchain technology which, it suggested, included potential applications in the healthcare sector.
“By providing serialization and tracking across complex supply chains that involve multiple parties and hand-offs, this latest offering leverages the powerful capabilities of blockchain to help mitigate threats such as product diversion, counterfeiting, grey market distribution, spoilage, substandard products and unauthorized introductions,” claimed One Network.
Expanding on that point specifically in the context of the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector, Greg Brady, One Network’s CEO, added: “By facilitating the mass serialization and lot tracking, the new chain-of-custody solution helps organizations comply with global mandates such as the recent US Drug Supply Chain Security Act.”
By Phil Hastings
Europe Correspondent | London