Anticounterfeiting in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain by establishing Proof of Ownership

Drug counterfeiting is a serious and increasing critical issue worldwide, which puts the health of consumers and the general population at risk. WHO estimates that the world's counterfeit drug market make billions of dollars annually. It is due to the inadequate supply chain in the developing countries that one in the drug is counterfeit. People buying such medicines not only waste their money but also put their life and health in danger. A drug's ownership changes from manufacturer to distributor and then to the pharmacist before reaching the customer. The manufacturers don't know how their drug is being used. At the same time, consumers don't know whether the drug has come from the rightful source. It is due to the counterfeit drug in the supply chain manufacturing companies and countries face huge economic loss. The RFID technology has been effective for over a decade providing anti-counterfeit measures to the supply chain. However, the RFID tags cannot be guaranteed genuineness, since the tags can be cloned easily. In this paper, we propose how blockchain can be utilized to not only prevent drug counterfeiting but also add traceability, security, and visibility to the pharmaceutical supply chain. For this purpose, a permissioned blockchain is designed to which only trusted parties can join the network and push transactions to the blockchain.