ABSTRACT
The pharma sector is highly regulated to ensure the safety and security of its consumers/patients. Pharmaceutical companies have fundamental responsibility for safety, quality, purity and effectiveness of their product and its disposal owing to its impact on society and humans. The chapter studies the various challenges in the pharma and healthcare ecosystem. With a process and system perspective it explores the various regulations, business protocols, recent trends and directions. Based on the studies it advocates the suitability and use of blockchain technology with the IoT to serve all these purposes for the benefit of people, process, compliance and security. It details the application of blockchain (with the IoT in some cases) for compliance aspects like the US Drug Supply Chain Security Act or EU Falsified Medicines Directive, transparency in clinical trials, transparency and monetization of genomics data management, prescription drugs transparency, etc. The chapter also evaluates and identifies unique use cases of blockchain for various aspects of drug manufacturing and the pharma supply chain. It touches upon the benefits that blockchain can bring in cases of pandemic like Covid-19. Lastly it also provides insight into how blockchain will play a critical role in the Covid-19 vaccination program.
