Enhanced Drug Anti-Counterfeiting and Verification System for the Pharmaceutical Drug Supply Chain using Blockchain

Abstract

The safety of the pharmaceutical drug supply chain is a major concern for global public health as the plague of drug counterfeiting along the supply chain is an increasing threat to the health of everyone. Various solutions have been proposed to solve the problem, yet, the problem is still rife, as estimates reveal that between 10% -30% of drugs in the developed and developing countries respectively are counterfeit. This research proposes an enhanced drug anti-counterfeiting and verification system, using blockchain, to counter the plague of drug counterfeiting along the supply chain, while providing a suitable means of verifying such drugs. Two germane smart contracts -shipDrug and receiveDrugwere defined to serve as a means of safely moving drugs from one supply chain actor to the other, to secure the drug supply chain from the infiltration of counterfeit drugs. The system was implemented on the Hyperledger Fabric. The implemented system effectively secured the supply chain by allowing only the valid supply chain actors to execute the defined smart contracts. Final consumers were able to verify a drug by using a unique identifier associated with that drug to query the transaction history from the blockchain ledger. Hyperledger Caliper was used to evaluate the proposed system where it was revealed that an optimal throughput of 46 drug verifications per second was obtained, with less utilization of CPU and memory resources. The health ramifications of drug counterfeiting and the findings from this research make it imperative to consider the proposed system as an effective drug anti-counterfeiting system. Finally, it was recommended that the global health authority could implement the system on a global scale, after a smaller scale implementation, such as within countries, to determine its effectiveness in securing the drug supply chain within such jurisdictions.

Topics & Concepts