Identification of Counterfeit Drugs Using Decentralized Supply Chain

This research attempts to overcome the problems faced by the medical healthcare system by using the advancing technology of blockchains. Pharma companies that manufacture and sell medicines face difficulties in tracking drugs, which in turn allows the counterfeiters to exploit the system. The decentralized abilities of blockchain technology enable us to counter the problems in existing centralized systems. The blockchain helps us to make sure that the quality is maintained throughout the decentralized supply chain. The use of blockchains in the medicine supply chain solution entails tracking the validity of the medicine from the producer to the distributor to the pharmacy. It assures that the pharmacist receives the original medication and does not reach the grey market. In this paper, the decentralized application which we created works using Ethereum and is based on blockchain technology. The medicine discovered by a pharmaceutical company is to be validated by an officer in a decentralized manner using smart contracts over Ethereum transactions. The validated drugs can then be produced and sold on the platform, where the entire data and the stages of the drug/medicine are tracked and stored. Research and development of such a system are necessary to facilitate the proper supply and tracking of medicines and to avoid counterfeiting. 

Keywords: Blockchain, Ethereum, Amart contracts, Decentralized application (DApp).