Secure and Transparent Supply Chain Management to Prevent Counterfeit Drugs

Md. Muhtasim Fuad Fahim, Mohammad Shahriar Rahman

Abstract: The production and distribution of counterfeit drugs are critical and progressively becoming a major issue in the world. One of the main reasons behind drug counterfeiting is the imperfect supply chain. It is difficult to track over the drugs from manufacturing to distribution. The major requirement of the drug supply chain is the assurance of drug quality, together with efficacy and safety. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based platform of drug supply chain management from manufacturer to pharmacist. We provide tracking over drugs as well as visibility and the safety of sensitive drug information. The existing drug supply chain manufacturers don’t know what happens with their drugs or which pharmacy is taking their drugs. But our proposed model ensures traceability so that manufacturers will be able to know which pharmacy is taking their drugs through the distributed network provided by blockchain. Our platform will provide a secure network where all participants can see all the transactions between other participants. All transactions between participants are recorded in the blockchain and other participants will be able to view the transactions history of participants. All blockchain transactions information is kept in encrypted form in a database. Also, encrypted QR code will ensure that illegitimate participants will not be able to make a copy of the information given by the manufacturer, and will not be able to produce fake drugs by using the copied information. So, it will ensure security of drug information. We have built a prototype of the platform over the Ethereum network.

External IDs:doi:10.1007/978-3-031-17181-9_16