Validation of drugs and traceability of counterfeit-drugs using blockchain

Project Title

Validation of drugs and traceability of counterfeit-drugs using blockchain

Project Area of Specialization BlockchainProject Summary

Counterfeit drugs are a multi-billion dollar problem on a global level. From the size, shape, and color of the pharmaceuticals, to the packaging made to look like the real thing, we don’t know whether they put alcohol or medicine in it.

According to the Health Research Funding Organization, up to 30% of the drugs sold in developing countries are counterfeit. Further, a recent study by World Health Organization (WHO) indicated counterfeit drugs as one of the major causes of death in developing countries, and in most cases the victims are children.

The Healthcare supply chain is a complex network of several independent entities that include raw material suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, hospitals, and patients. Tracking supplies through this network is non-trivial due to several factors including lack of information, centralized control, and competing behavior among stakeholders. Such complexity not only results in inefficiencies such as those highlighted through the COVID-19 pandemic but can also aggravate the challenge of mitigating against counterfeit drugs as these can easily permeate the healthcare supply chain.

Within the context of blockchain-based traceability for the pharmaceutical supply chain, presents one of the initial efforts. Although our solution has similarities with this effort due to the focus on the issue of drug safety using blockchain. Blockchain's advanced features provide a basis for complete traceability of drugs from manufacturer to end consumer, and the ability to identify counterfeit-drugs. It produces a secure channel for drug safety among various participants like manufacturer, distributor, patient, hospital, and regulatory of smart contract, in the medicine supply chain. It focused on a subset of these challenges.

Pharmaceuticals organization manufacture the drug with detail as drug name, location, timestamp, ingredients, usage of the drug, and side effect, and get authorized by a regulatory approved smart contract.

The manufacturer generates an encrypted QR-Code for the details and attaches the transaction to the blockchain system. If any participants want details of drugs, then the public key must be shared by that participant with the manufacturer. The manufacturer will encrypt the QR-Code and will send it back to the participant. The QR-Code is decrypted by the valid participant by their private key.

The illegitimate user cannot access the blockchain, only legitimate can access the blockchain using the public key. Likewise, the system ensures the traceability of right and active pharmaceutical ingredients during the actual manufacturing process and helps to eliminate the risk of expired and counterfeit drugs.

THIS PROJECT IS BASED ON BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY WHICH IS ONE OF THE MOST ENHANCED TECHNOLOGY. THAT’S WHY THIS PROJECT HAS A VERY HIGH DEMAND IN MARKET AS NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY.

Project Objectives

Pharmaceutical companies have struggled for years to track their products throughout their supply chains and saving the lives of our people from the usage of expired and counterfeit drugs.

To counteract this problem, a new system is required that can track and validate drugs. Traceability is defined as the ability to access any or all information relating to the object under consideration, throughout its life cycle, by means of recorded identifications. The object under consideration is referred to as Traceable Resource Unit (TRU) which is any traceable object within the supply chain. Traceability objectives are twofold; to track the history of transactions, and to track the real-time position of the TRU. In this context, a traceability system requires access to information related to the drug which is the TRU in the supply chain by using different identification techniques to record its identity and distinguish it from other TRUs.

This project will give a system that can successfully track drugs and help prevent the circulation of fake ones. Using blockchain technology traceability, visibility and security can also be incorporated into the drug supply chain. This system will track the drugs from their origin, the manufacturer to the end, the consumer.

Project Implementation Method

The proposed solution is developed using the Ethereum blockchain platform. Ethereum is a permission-less public blockchain which means it can be accessed by anyone. The smart contract is written in Solidity language. The manufacturer will first deploy the smart contract in which details of the manufactured drug Lot will be defined, declared and an event will be triggered and announced to all participants in the supply chain. New participants are added to the network, they will have access to the events since they are permanently stored on the ledger and therefore they can track and trace the history of any manufactured drug Lot. The relationship among the different entities with the smart contract. First, the smart contract will be deployed using the attributes, such as the ownerID, lot name, lotPrice, numBoxes, box price, QR-Code. The ownerID is the Ethereum address of the current smart contract owner. Anyone can Track and trace the Lot using QR-Code.

Benefits of the Project

This project can be introduced like a system that offers several benefits in combating counterfeit-drugs which are as follows:

In these projects where Blockchain technology will use, it can combat many counterfeiting operations by significantly improving the security of supply chains around the world with verifiable medications.

Third-party companies, such as shipping logistics and cold-chain management companies, who provide research on the movement of pharmaceuticals, could be replaced by these project, reducing overheads for larger companies and small pharmacies.

By developing these project and supporting it with proper infrastructure to secure big data, building on a chain of transparency and accountability like blockchain will restore trust in the healthcare industry for generations to come.

This project secures the drug supply chain, the foremost solution being a distributed digital ledger for managing the entire drug development lifecycle, and Blockchain’s transparency and traceability also provide a great potential benefit to the pharmacy supply chain.

The system can provide a secure and transparent experience to customers. Consumers are able to check the source of their drug by scanning a QR Code, by which the system will provide the entire source of the drug.

It provides health safety as there will be no expired and counterfeit-drugs.

Whether it is doctors, pharmacists, hospitals, or manufacturers, everyone involved in the chain will be able to track the relevant drug. This helps prevent anyone from entering fake drugs into the chain and will reduce the problem of counterfeit drugs

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

We will deliver an android and IOS app for accessing the blockchain system and can scan QR-Code for tracing the drug.
A web app for accessing the blockchain system.

Design Phase

In this phase we gathered all the system requirements related to our project

Design the technology solution

Design user experience

Establish our blockchain-based system.

Testing Phase

We will carry out different types of testing techniques/approaches which are explained    below:

Manual Testing

Manual testing is the procedure of testing the software by hand to find the faults. The tester should have knowledge of the viewpoint of end-users to confirm that all features are working as stated in the software requirement document. In this course of testing, the tester executes the test cases and generates the reports by hand deprived of using any automatic tools.

Automation Testing

Automation testing is the procedure of testing software using an automatic tool to discover faults. In this procedure, the tester executes the test scripts and generates the test outcomes automatically by using various tools. One of the well-known automation testing tools for functional testing is Selenium.

Evaluation Phase

In general, evaluation processes go through four distinct phases: planning, implementation, completion, and reporting. While these mirror common program development steps, it is important to remember that evaluation efforts may not always be linear.

Planning

The most important considerations during the planning phase for project evaluation are prioritizing short and long-term goals, identifying target audience(s), determining methods for collecting data, and assessing the feasibility of each for the target audience(s).

Implementation

This is the carrying out of the evaluation plan. Concentrate on formative and process evaluation strategies at this point in efforts.

Completion

Upon completion of the program, or the intermediate steps along the way, evaluation efforts will be designed to examine long-term outcomes and impacts, and summarize the overall performance of the program.

Final Deliverable of the Project Software SystemCore Industry MedicalOther Industries IT Core Technology BlockchainOther TechnologiesSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for People, Industry, Innovation and InfrastructureRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	7519
QR SCANNER	Equipment	1	7519	7519