How To Guide: Blockchain and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
What are the first steps for blockchain implementation within my Pharmaceutical company?
The pharmaceutical sector has several issues that have been brought to the forefront since the onset of the global pandemic. The pandemic has demonstrated how disruptive these challenges are to the smooth operation of companies. Although the pharma industry fared better than most in these circumstances, we still have room for improvement.
In a previous study, Pistoia Alliance indicated that a significant usage of blockchain in pharmaceuticals and healthcare can be deployed in support of the supply chain by creating a traceable trail to guarantee drug source. Over two-thirds (68 percent) of pharmaceutical and life science leaders believe blockchain will have the greatest influence in this field as compared to incumbent siloed legacy systems.
Based on the numerous benefits the technology offers, blockchain can strengthen the pharmaceutical industry to enhance the supply chain, patient data management and traceability of falsified drugs. These are the things that should be considered while implementing blockchain in the pharmaceutical industry.
Analysis
This is the most crucial step in the blockchain implementation process. Data shows that in 2017, only 22% of pharmaceutical companies were experimenting with blockchain but today 60% of pharmaceutical and life science professionals are using blockchain.
To identify a use case, you must investigate, explain, and organize your requirements for blockchain. In addition, you should know how effective the present use cases are and which one is best for your industry.
Evaluation of resources is an important aspect that should be considered when implementing blockchain in the pharma industry like Novartis, one of the world’s top pharmaceutical firms, did. Blockchain allowed Novartis to move money and information without the need of middlemen. The financial use case and paradigm is well known but how about directly within GMP manufacturing scenarios?
1. Evaluation
If your organization lacks the necessary resources, try recruiting external teams with platform development experience. Many vendors provide their services, and you can hire them from anywhere. However, the significant needs for vendors in this scenario should be reliability, resource availability, past portfolios, and references from previous clients.
2. Identification
Identification of the areas which need improvement is a crucial factor that is considered while implementing blockchain in any industry, and the second thing is to determine which aspects of the pharmaceutical industry require attention. This stage entails examining your requirements and structuring them for technological implementation. When determining your use case, You'll need to ask yourself questions like, "why exactly do I need a blockchain?". "How does a blockchain implementation benefit my industry?" If I decide to use a blockchain implementation, what are my objectives, goals, and targets?" Many other related questions can assist you in better understanding why you require a blockchain implementation and how you may proceed with your objectives.
3. Feasibility
It is critical to establish whether the task is feasible and functional at this level. Because it is a sketch or outline of how the solution can be successfully implemented in your industry, the Proof of concept (PoC) will lead you through the rest of the implementation process. POC it's a strategic approach for determining whether a blockchain implementation is feasible for your industry. Before creating your PoC, you must first comprehend the rigorous planning phase. Again, you'll need to think about some pertinent questions to help you evaluate your PoC step by step. These inquiries would be based on your company's requirements. You might consider some questions such as "What business challenge am I looking to fix through this blockchain implementation? "How can I use blockchain to transform my business?" and so on. In addition, you should be aware of the possible consequences of your conduct. In other words, you should be analytical and careful in your actions and conclusions.
4. Right platform
It is important to note that when choosing a blockchain platform for your pharma industry, you must be analytical and cautious. This is a tactical step in which you must think about things like your budget, scalability, or perhaps there is an off the shelf solution like Servblock available.
Therefore, when choosing a blockchain platform for your industry, you should know that you have many blockchain platforms.
To further confuse the matter on top of these blockchain platforms we have decentralized applications otherwise known dApps. Some popular blockchain platforms are Ethereum, Quorum and Corda by R3.
Although many blockchains exist it is important to distinguish between public blockchains and enterprise blockchains.
Servblock falls in to the dApp category. Think of it as the interface between your company and a decentralized audit trail between you and your partners.
5. Test and Deploy
It's critical to thoroughly test the solution and evaluate how it performs. As a result, to build your blockchain solution. Testing your blockchain implementation on the test network requires testing apps to ensure proper functioning.
All that's needed now is the deployment of a blockchain application after running and managing the network.
Here Servblock can share its wealth of industry knowledge and advanced technology. We provide a cloud based solution which enables to get your project online in a matter of days!
References
Yue, X., Wang, H., Jin, D., Li, M., & Jiang, W. (2016). Healthcare Data Gateways: Found Healthcare Intelligence on Blockchain with Novel Privacy Risk Control. Journal of Medical Systems, 40(10). https://doi.org/10.1007/S10916-016-0574-6
Supply Chain Transformation with Blockchain Deployment: Enhancing Efficiency and Effectiveness - ProQuest. (n.d.). Retrieved May 24, 2022, from https://www.proquest.com/docview/2633005413?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true
Woods, J., & Iyengar-Emens, R. (2019). Blockchain to Secure a More Personalized Pharma. Https://Home.Liebertpub.Com/Gen, 39(1), 27–29. https://doi.org/10.1089/GEN.39.01.08
