In recent years, blockchain has received tremendous praise and piqued the interest of various industries to streamline their financial services. The pharmaceutical companies are also exploring the option to integrate blockchain for a unified monetary and management system.

What is Blockchain?

A blockchain is a software that offers a digital ledger system to record and log transactions by chronologically combining them into ordered blocks. These blocks are linked and secured to allow safe access. The security feature of blockchain ensures that the information is evenly distributed across various networks. There is no centralized entry for hackers. Furthermore, with the unified network grid, the users can check real-time transactions and revisions to blockchains. This reduces the chances of human errors or other fraudulent activities.

In the pharma landscape, blockchain can be an excellent solution for an efficient supply chain across the globe. The evenly distributed network will ensure end-to-end supply chain management for every company and product. With multiple stakeholders in the network, a secured database will be created without doing a patchwork of former supply chain software.

Blockchain in Pharma: The Current Scenario

The $482 billion pharmaceutical industry holds excellent value in the healthcare sector. The sector is patient-centric with little scope for innovation. The entire process of this industry can be distributed into discovery, development, and distribution of the drug product. The discovery process is a little critical, considering that most drugs fail to reach the clinical trial phase.

Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industries confront various challenges such as data disparity, increased competition in the generic domain, growing customer expectations, poor supply chain, and struggling scientific productivity. Currently, the pharmaceutical environment needs a technology that can streamline the processes and help them endure the challenges with complete solutions.

How Can Blockchain Solve Pharmaceutical Challenges?

Blockchain can solve a lot of challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry. It can streamline the entire pharmaceutical process into three crucial elements: privacy, transparency, and traceability. This can set standards for industry law and practices. Furthermore, it can also aid in tracing or keeping track of drugs in the market.

Returned Drugs Authenticity

The overstocking of wholesalers and failure to meet the market needs causes pharmaceutical companies to deal with returned drugs. Overall, around 2-3% of the drugs are returned by the wholesalers. If we speak in the volume of money, it can reach between 7 to 10$ billion, which is a considerable number.

However, the biggest concern is that most of the drugs returned are counterfeited. Hence, it becomes a colossal task for companies to identify and separate them before selling them again to the market.

A decentralized blockchain can resolve this issue by recording package serial numbers on blockchain. This way, the drugs can be verified from anywhere in the country.

Supply Chain Management

The pharmaceutical supply chain is humongous, and blockchain can set grounds to effectively manage the entire chain globally by improving visibility, reducing counterfeit drugs, better shipping- while complying with regulatory norms.

Tracking Sensitive Drugs

Some sensitive drugs require tracking of multiple parameters, including humidity, air quality, temperature, and so forth. Improper monitoring of such parameters can lead to the deterioration of the drug product. Blockchain can help in this regard by integrating with blockchain. The supply chain can attach devices that can give real-time humidity, temperature, or data of other parameters. This way, you can take the necessary steps as and when required.

Better Clinical Trials

Since blockchain stores patient information, it can also improve the clinical trial process. Companies can use blockchain to communicate with patients and educate them about every step of the clinical trial process. Also, the clinical trial protocols can be made more transparent for both stakeholders and patients. This will ensure the informed consent of both parties.

Inventory Management

With a streamlined supply chain, pharmaceutical companies can effectively manage their inventory. Furthermore, blockchain can also automate the inventory to trigger whenever there is a supply or demand scenario. In this way, if there is any spike in demand, the system will automatically request more production. Thus, the companies can keep track of every stage using technology.

Some Examples of Pharmaceutical Companies Using Blockchain [2]

Pfizer
Pfizer uses the MediLedger blockchain project to create a closed ecosystem and track drugs to every last detail. The system also ensures that there is no counterfeit. Overall, Pfizer is already utilizing the technology and successfully reaping benefits from it.

Roche
Roche, another huge pharma giant next to Pfizer, collaborates with Abbvie and Pfizer to test the supply chain pilot through its Genentech division. Furthermore, it is also working on developing a real-time system to pool blood data from heart patients.

United Healthcare
United Healthcare is collaborating with Optum and working on Multiplan, Humana, and Quest Diagnostics. The company is putting efforts to reduce overall costs associated with administrative tasks by utilizing blockchain technology.

Conclusion

While the other industries are actively making use of blockchain, the pharma sector is still evolving. The companies are also coming across different challenges that can be solved by incorporating blockchain. It can make the entire process uniform and provide benefits in terms of clinical trials, automation, compliance, drug authenticity, and so forth. The big pharma giants are making use to improve their work by using blockchain. On this note, the other industries can also improve their process in the best possible way by integrating blockchain into their usual work process.

References

• https://www.epmmagazine.com/pharmaceutical-industry-insights/the-application-of-blockchain-in-the-pharma-sector/
• https://hbr.org/2020/05/why-big-pharma-is-betting-on-blockchain
• https://pharmaphorum.com/views-and-analysis/five-use-cases-for-blockchain-in-pharma/
• https://101blockchains.com/blockchain-in-pharma/#:~:text=As%20blockchain%20can%20store%20information,of%20the%20clinical%20trial%20process.