MIAS PHARMA UPDATEFighting counterfeit drugs with blockchain technology…

The Asia-Pacific pharmaceutical giant Zuellig pharma is using a blockchain platform by SAP to assist consumers identify the medicines place of origin. With 1 in 10 medicinal products that are used in developing countries deemed fake, there is a substantial need to eradicate counterfeit drugs that could pose a danger to patients.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), counterfeit drugs, while seemingly identical to the real thing, often “fail to properly treat the disease or condition for which they were intended, and can lead to serious health consequences, including death”.

However, cracking down on counterfeit drugs can be quite time-consuming. At Zuellig Pharma, a regional pharmaceutical giant in the Asia-Pacific region, state how it could take weeks to do so, as it needs to gather data from different parties across its supply chain. This is where the blockchain technology comes in to play. Zuellig Pharma has recently developed the ‘eZTracker’ smartphone app, powered by SAP’s blockchain platform, that lets consumers verify the authenticity of a drug and if it has been legitimately distributed by scanning a barcode.

In December 2018, the company said, “If a product is fake, alerts will be automatically triggered to the manufacturer and to Zuellig Pharma, together with an instant identification of where the fake product entered the supply chain.”

To find out more about this new exciting technology and how its goal is to stamp out counterfeit drugs for the health and safety of patients, click here.

Source: https://bit.ly/2koK9zd