• Pharmacy network to resolve the problem of drug counterfeiting, The three major negative implications of drug counterfeiting.

1. It results in a section of the society suffering from health issues.

2. Brand owners face a potential reputation risk.

3. There is a lack of transparency in drug distribution supply chains.

• how can serialisation enable companies to handle all three methods of counterfeiting?

1. It would be extremely difficult for factories manufacturing counterfeit drugs to find and replicate SKU-level serial numbers.

2. Second, circulation of genuine drugs in the black market at the contractor’s end would not be possible, as serial numbers are not shared with them. So, the sale or movement of drugs will not be activated.

3. And third, the reintroduction of expired drugs into the supply chain would not be possible, as the serial numbers help identify the reintroduced drugs and ascertain that they have expired and are counterfeit.

• serialisation can also be leveraged to provide two additional benefits:

1. The first is supply chain transparency. Using serial numbers to track products at the item level, companies would also reduce costs of their expired medicines, reduce instances of stock dumping and achieve pinpoint accuracy of item-level sales data.

2. The second is insurance fraud detection, where tighter controls can be enabled over high-priced products. So, recirculation or wrong usage can be prohibited, by considering purchases as uses and enforcing a single-use on each serial number. The result of such an application is observed in a reduction of health insurance costs, improvement of healthcare quality, transparent healthcare practices and complete utility of all purchases.

• StakeHolders in the network:

1. Manufacturers: All the drug manufacturers that are registered or will be registered in the future with the network will belong to this level. For example, companies like ‘Sun Pharma’ and ‘Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories’ that are drug manufacturing companies will be a part of the ‘Manufacturers’ organisation.

2. Distributors: All the drug distributors that are registered or will be registered in the future on the network will belong to this organisation. These distributors will purchase drugs directly from the manufacturers. For example, companies like ‘VG pharma’ and ‘Medico Labs’ would constitute drug distributors and be a part of the ‘Distributors’ organisation.

3. Retailers: All pharmacists or drug retailers will be a part of this organisation. The retailers will receive drug consignments from the distributors.

4. Consumers: These are the people who purchase medicines from pharmacists.

5. Transporters: A transporter is an entity that is responsible for the shipment of consignments from one point to another. For example, entities like Blue Dart or FedEx will serve as transporters to ship the drug consignments from Manufacturers to Distributors. Similarly, if a consignment has to be shipped from a Distributor to a Retailer, a transporter will be required.

• Workflow The workflow required for the case study is divided into the following four units:

• Company Registration: All the entities who wish to be part of the supply chain network must be first registered or, in other terms, stored on the ledger.

• Drug Registration: As a part of this process, any drug manufactured has to be registered on the ledger by the manufacturing company.

• Transfer Drug: A buyer of the product will raise a Purchase Order for a particular drug.

The Purchase Order will be generated for a batch of drugs. It will include information like the name of the drug, the quantity required, Buyer, etc.

Based on the Purchase Order, the seller of the drug will initiate the process of shipment of the drug with the help of a transporter company like ‘FedEx’, and a shipment object will be created.

The shipment object will contain information like, the name of the transporter, origin, destination, etc.

Once the consignment is received by the buyer, the buyer will become the new owner of each item of the batch.

If the buyer is a consumer, then the Purchase Order and the shipment process need not be initiated. Only the owner of the drug is changed from the retailer to the consumer.

• View Lifecycle: It is the process to view the lifecycle of the asset to date. Imagine a consumer or a retailer wishes to view the lifecycle of a drug called ‘amoxicillin’ with serial number ‘medi-001’. The ‘View Lifecycle’ functionality of the smart contract will allow any participant in the network to view the entire lifecycle of the asset.