By Mitesh Pillai
The high incidence of counterfeit medications entering the global supply chain has long been a source of concern for the pharmaceutical industry. These counterfeit medications can be harmful, if not fatal, to patients’ health. In addition to the negative impact on patients, counterfeit drugs have a direct impact on pharmaceutical businesses’ profits and reputations since they cannibalise real product markets and tarnish brand image and trustworthiness.
The estimate of counterfeit medicines account for 10 to 15 percent in pharmaceutical supply chain. In underdeveloped nations, counterfeit pharmaceuticals account for 30 percent of total drug sales. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Counterfeiting has become one of the world’s largest and fastest growing illegal businesses and, due to increased production and distribution of counterfeit goods and their ability to be produced in large quantities in a short amount of time, annually it is projected to be worth about 600 billion USD according to the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition.
For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has been plagued by the reality of counterfeit medications entering its intricate supply networks. Companies are seeking creative ways to address the growing danger to patient lives and brand reputations. The incident of counterfeit medications has significantly increased during COVID pandemic due to huge demand for the medications. The pharmaceutical industry’s existing Supply Chain Management systems are obsolete or outdated, failing to offer authorities over medication delivery and distribution. As a result of this situation, counterfeit medicines are produced, distributed, and consumed. These fake medicines have a negative impact on the health of the human body both directly and indirectly, which is considered a severe public health threat and a growing global concern.
Cutting-edge digital technologies, such as blockchain technology, are needed to prevent counterfeiting of the medications. Each nation should implement a standard electronic system for identifying goods containing drugs. Everybody on the internet, including drug users, is welcome to participate in this endeavour. The significant roadblock for implementation of such technology is the participation of multiple stakeholders which include pharmaceutical companies, distributors, retailers, patient, and government authorities, making it a challenging task. Regulatory bodies have key role in creating a framework which would help in adoption of blockchain technology in pharmaceutical supply chain.
The fundamental goal of the current research was to provide the framework required for a successful adoption of blockchain technology in pharmaceutical supply chain for a global campaign against counterfeit medications.
The analysis conducted in this research focuses on key factors that influence the adoption success of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Factors that have impact on the adoption of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain were identified by a gap and finding analysis of more than 175 research papers, most of which were published between 2018 and 2022. Environment, Organisation, and Technology were identified as key factors. Key benefits from the adoption of blockchain technology in pharmaceutical supply chain are supply chain security, operational efficiencies, smart contracts, and ESG (economic, social, and governance) advantages.
A total of 256 people from all over the world responded to the survey (response rate of 40%), with most replies coming from the Asia-Pacific area, while most respondents were CEOs, top management (in the technology and pharmaceutical industries), pharmaceutical professionals, and IT professionals.
According to the research empirical findings, two key stakeholders that are organisation and environment which have the greatest influence on adoption of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Based on the outcome of the research, Researcher have proposed that strategy for both the stakeholders for enabling successful adoption of blockchain technology in pharmaceutical supply chain.
Government should use a human-centred design approach to successfully implement the policies and regulations in an environment that help in successful implementation of blockchain technology in pharmaceutical supply chain. The government should employ human-centred design approach to create a sustainable pharmaceutical supply chain. To do so, the government needs to implement three fundamental elements of the human-centred design approach:
- Stakeholder networks: Stakeholder networks were evaluated with reference to mutual trust among stakeholders and industry best practice as sub-variables of the environment. The environmental context, which includes stakeholders (patients, employees, suppliers, distributors, regulators, etc.) throughout the life-cycle design process, is critical for increasing the credibility of the information and promoting the sharing of knowledge among the stakeholders.
- Level of involvement: Three levels of engagement are used to represent the level of involvement. The initial level is the informational level, which is followed by the consultative level and the participatory level. Adopting this approach will make it easier to incorporate important inputs into designing the supply chain network.
- Design principles: Data from all stakeholders should be used in the design development of the pharmaceutical supply chain. To construct the suggested pharmaceutical supply chain, data from all stakeholders should be carefully collected and analysed. Use of the human-centred design approach will also help in successfully implementing the industry 5.0 principles in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Industry 5.0 has also helped in achieving the sustainability goal by reducing pollution and human involvement in technology adoption.
These findings support the author’s conclusion that human-centered aspects are crucial for achieving sustainability-oriented operations across the supply chain when switching to sustainable manufacturing processes and consumption.After the Government, organisations have the second most significant impact on the adoption of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Effective change management can be achieved using Kotter’s eight-step change management paradigm. This, together with a human-centred design strategy, can aid in promoting the use of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain for prevention of counterfeit drugs. This research also helps humans to participate effectively in technology adoption rather than aiming to replace these humans, which was the concept articulated by the industry 4.0 principles. This approach can help in saving the lives of patients and aid in creating safe and secure healthcare infrastructure across the globe.
The author is DBA scholar, SP Jain School of Global Management
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