Blockchain in Pharmaceutical Research

Abstract

The emergence of COVID-19 signalled the need for evolutionary research in the field of pharmaceutical industry. The scarcity of live-saving drugs, equipment, cross-border regulations and restrictions, state-level and national caregiving infrastructure forced many governments world-wide to re-design, re-think and invest in healthcare infrastructure and pharmaceutical research. Supply Chain Management(SCM) is a primary enterprise activity accountable for transferring/distributing products and services from one stakeholder to another within the chain. Conventional SCM, which is based on centralized approach, lacks security, transactional transparency, and traceability. It also includes product counterfeiting, fraud, and instabilities. Centralized Pharmaceutical Supply Chain(PSC) management implicitly inherits all the challenges of traditional SCM. The production and supply of counterfeit drugs that contain life-threatening, toxic ingredients are rising in the pharmaceutical industry. Even after using barcodes, holograms, and RFID tags to restore the data integrity as well as originality of pharmaceutical products, counterfeiting remains as a primary challenge for national as well as international level PSC. Implementation of blockchain technology for PSC management may overcome the challenges of traditional PSC issues as well as authorization and verification of transactions in the supply chain where the presence of a trusted third party is not mandatory. The decentralized, immutable and verifiable nature of blockchain technology provide the support to authenticate the source/origin of drugs for any stakeholder within the PSC. This authentication may act as a solution to prevent malpractices of circulating counterfeit and expired drugs within the PSC. In this chapter, we review various existing blockchain frameworks for PSC management, their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, we analyze how these frameworks support for drug authentication and its expiry tracking. Next, we conclude with the discussion of real-life challenges for implementing blockchain technology in PSC management. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.