The global pharmaceutical industry is responsible for manufacturing medications from the ground up. From the research and development that goes into producing these drugs to the actual manufacturing, distribution, and marketing that goes behind a successful drug. There is no doubt that Pharmaceutical companies are very important for the benefit of all humanity and therefore command the overall revenue of over a trillion dollars. But the industry also suffers from a number of problems – from counterfeit drugs to intellectual property disputes. Let’s take a look at these problems in detail and see how blockchains can help the use of pharmaceutical drugs in the world.

1. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org 1

2. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
HOW CAN BLOCKCHAIN TRANSFORM THE USE OF
PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS?
The global pharmaceutical industry is responsible for manufacturing medications from
the ground up. From the research and development that goes into producing these drugs
to the actual manufacturing, distribution, and marketing that goes behind a successful
drug.
2

3. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
There is no doubt that Pharmaceutical companies are very important for the benefit of all
humanity and therefore command the overall revenue of over a trillion dollars. But the
industry also suffers from a number of problems – from counterfeit drugs to intellectual
property disputes. Let’s take a look at these problems in detail and see how blockchains
can help the use of pharmaceutical drugs in the world.
3

4. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
Problems Affecting Pharmaceutical Drugs
Worldwide
Research and development of new pharmaceutical drugs is a very data intensive process
that costs manufacturers a significant portion of their overall expenditure. Research
involving new drugs is largely dependent on the free availability of patient data to doctors
that are involved in the manufacturing of the new drug. But as recent hacks have
revealed, ensuring patient information confidentiality has proved to be a bigger struggle
than initially anticipated.
4

5. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
Cybersecurity, especially when sensitive information is involved is prone to several cyber
attacks because of the single source of failure involved in their architecture. By
comparison, blockchains are nearly impossible to penetrate because of the vast amount
of computational power backing the network. Next in the manufacture of pharmaceutical
drugs is the actual distribution of the produced goods. One of the biggest issues affecting
the distribution of pharmaceutical drugs is the prevalence of counterfeit drugs that are
mixed in somewhere along the supply chain.
5

6. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
Blockchains can be very useful in this regard as they can help keep an unbiased chain of
custody log which would make it easy to pinpoint the exact point of failure so that such
leaks can be fixed in the future. It’s estimated that the so-called SSFFC medicines –
substandard, spurious, falsely labeled, falsified and counterfeit – cost the global
pharmaceutical industry over $200 billion!
6

7. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
How Blockchains Can Help Regulators Ensure
Security
Distributed ledger technology has enabled huge marketplaces for data in an arrangement
where both parties knowingly share benefits. Users get paid for sharing the private data
and researchers get access to the data directly from the source instead of having to
procure it from a third party. Patients that are involved in drug trials would get complete
control over how their information is used instead of being left in the dark.
7

8. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
Blockchain-based services like Civic already allow users to use their blockchain
for storing sensitive information. Any time a third party requests access to the
sensitive documents, the users get a prompt on their phone to allow or deny the
request.
In order to get more control over the regulation of drugs, the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) pushed for the Drug Quality and Security Act (DCSA).
8

9. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
The DCSA is a law that amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to grant more
authority to the FDA to regulate and monitor the manufacturing of compounded drugs.
The DCSA would do so by setting clear goals for a 10-year timeframe that will modernize
the current supply chain to include services like medication track-and-trace, product
verification and real-time tests about illegitimate drugs. Blockchains fit frictionlessly into
this model as they can provide the kind of real-time monitoring that the FDA is looking
for.
9

10. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
Tapan Mehta, spokesperson at DMI, a mobile technology and services company
claims that additional functionality in blockchain platforms, such as private keys
and smart contracts could provide an additional layer of security for the shipments.
In the event that a drug shipment goes missing, the data stored on the common
ledger provides a quick way for the manufacturer to trace it, and ensure that the
mistake is not repeated.
10

11. Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org
Blockchain Council Certifications
You can check out our certifications, and kick start your career in the Blockchain
space today.
● Certified Blockchain Expert
● Certified Blockchain Expertv2
● Certified Blockchain Developer
● Certified Smart Contract Developer
● Certified Solidity Developer
● Certified Ethereum Developer
11

12. THANK YOU!
Any questions?
You can mail us at
hello@blockchain-council.org
Copyright © Blockchain Council www.blockchain-council.org 12