Cloud-based blockchain technology to identify counterfeits

Abstract

Multi-stakeholder and organizational involvement is an integral part of the medicine supply chain. Keeping track of the activities associated with medical products is difficult when the system is complex. Their complexity limits transparency and data provenance. Deficiencies within existing supply chains result in the counterfeiting of drugs, illegal imports, and inefficient operations. Due to these limitations, product integrity is compromised, resulting in product wastage. Visibility of the entire product supply chain is crucial for the pharmaceutical industry in terms of product safety and reduction of manufacturing costs. The Cloud-based Blockchain-powered architecture of the system provides a platform for addressing the need of pharma-material traceability, data storage, privacy of data, and quality assurance. This framework comprises of the identification of activities through tagging, information sharing in a secure environment; cloud-based storage using an off-chain Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and an on-chain couch DB; and access to this information that is controlled by the system's regulator. Electronic drug records will be accessed via a smart contract in Hyperledger Blockchain. The system assists in identifying false and cross-border products through the manufacturer and country of origin. A scan will identify counterfeit medications, showing that they are unauthorized products which may pose a risk to patients. Our experiments demonstrated the efficiency and usability of the design platform. Finally, we benchmarked the system using Hyperledger Caliper.

Keywords: Access control; Distributed ledger; Pharmaceutical supply chain; Privacy; Supply chain visibility.

Fig. 1

A Challenge of Collaboration

Fig. 2

Contributions of the Research

Fig. 3

The Proposed Framework

Fig. 4

The System Architecture

Fig. 5

Data Flow from User to Application

Fig. 6

The Transaction Workflow

Fig. 7

Business Network of the Proposed System

Algorithm 1:

Registration

Algorithm 2:

Traceability

Algorithm 3:

Implemented Functionalities

Fig. 8

The Proposed Smart Contract Architecture

Fig. 9

Comparative Analysis of Response Time with Different Fixed Transaction Sets

Fig. 10

Comparative Analysis of Response Time with Three Different Sets of Transaction

Fig. 11

A Comparative Analysis of Throughput of Three Different Successful Transaction Sets

Fig. 12

A Comparative Analysis of Average Latency of Three Successful Transaction Groups