ABSTRACT
Pharmaceutical companies and other parties involved in drug supply chain face difficulties in meeting the traceability requirements from the regulatory bodies in different jurisdictions and in their capability to authenticate goods and drugs, which result in failure to combat major issues such as drugs counterfeiting. Counterfeit drugs are estimated for up to $200 billion per year in market value. This issue is contributing to the deaths of thousands of people due to use of ineffective drugs for serious illnesses. The drug supply chain is fragmented, and that prohibits establishing a global view on handling drugs from manufacturing until reaching the customer, with many loopholes that permit the introduction of counterfeit products that patients cannot authenticate. The recently introduced regulations in the US and the EU demand building interoperable electronic systems to enable tracing of drugs. Those regulations rely mainly on attaching a two-dimensional barcode for identification. However, applying these regulations and ensuring to have global view and perseverance of records and actions are not yet addressed. Blockchain’s immutability, provenance, and tokenization features provide a solution to address this and meet the requirements of authenticating drugs source and secure the supply chain. This chapter presents the use of non-fungible tokens to build a drug supply chain tool that enables identifiers creation, authentication of origin, transfer of ownership, and accessibility to drugs information by different stakeholders, including end customers.
