PharmaTrace offers digital transformation
Pharma Business by Blockchain
PharmaTrace is a blockchain-based ecosystem in healthcare. It brings participants in the pharmaceutical marketplace together to do better business based on a common distributed ledger. The company regards itself as a catalyst for the healthcare industry, using its technology stack and expertise in digital transformation. Its Blockchain as a Service(BaaS) offering enables all types and sizes of customers to easy-access blockchain-based technologies in order to develop their cloud-based services, apps, functions and smart contracts without investing in in-house development.
Clients can use PharmaTrace’s customizable templates and plug-and-play module to better focus on core areas and the functionality of the blockchain, without worrying about performance, infrastructure and maintenance. PharmaTrace allows its clients to be future-ready with scalable solutions built on blockchain. The solution is of great importance for the pharmaceutical industry because of the growing problem of counterfeiting, affecting both patient lives and revenue losses to the pharmaceutical companies.
The PharmaTrace solution focuses on the following key modules:
• Track and Trace of prescription medicines: This uses the unique serialization number of each package to track it along the entire supply chain, across the stakeholders using the PharmaTrace solution. Counterfeits are detected by alert flags raised by the system on scanning of the fake drug barcode. A real time verification and validation of registered assets with the manufacturer’s database ensures robust leakage detection and control mechanism
• Saleable Returns / Verification: The verification of serialization data at one or more stops along the supply chain is key to ensure the avoidance of leakage and counterfeits. PharmaTrace provides real- time, secure verification of the product returned by the pharmacy to the distributor/wholesaler. PharmaTrace also provides interoperability, so that wholesalers and distributors can easily verify barcodes with the database and flags as well as logs transactions that are suspicious.
• Condition monitoring: The PharmaTrace Blockchain platform can interact with the condition monitoring IoT device placed in cold storage containers -- large cold storages, refrigerators and vehicles. This is relevant for drugs that need to be stored under prescribed temperature, pressure and humidity, such as vaccines and photosensitive drugs. In case of any breaches, PharmaTrace’s autonomous agents raise flags, log into the system and report it to the relevant stakeholders. The in-built track and trace mechanism then allows removal of spoiled medicines from the supply chain system.
• Certificate management: This ensures digitization of compliance certificates and supply chain documents like invoices, e-bill of lading, title of ownership, customs clearances and bank letters of credit.
PharmaTrace uses a secure, fast and efficient system that allows participants to create trust without the need for “trusted parties,” according to its website. Therefore, this ecosystem is an agile and cross-interactive way to exchange data and services while being cost effective and easy to install. Its decentralized network provides high-level data security, complete traceability and simplified process pathways at both local and global levels.
The PharmaTrace Ecosystem leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Leaning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) to protect supply chains, data exchange and data integrity in transaction channels, while providing cost-saving models and business operations at any scale. It features Embodied TRUST: accountability of tracking and tracing and Instant Agreement of smart contracts by shared ledger in business partner interactions. It is patient-centric through AI, combined with big data for cost reduction and better decisions, through automation. PharmaTracee offers Pay-Per-Performance modeling through Smart Contracts. It can automate KOL networks and optimize influencer targets to maximize the reach, reduce supply chain overhead cost by 50 percent in less than 3 years and provide Instant Zero Error Status in auditing and 100 percent automated processes.
According to Dr. Issame Outaleb, founder and chief executive officer of PharmaTrace, who earned a Ph.D. in bioinformatics and immunology at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany and then worked as a business management senior consultant and strategist for top tier managers, executives and marketers in biotech and pharmaceutical companies to enhance and grow their businesses, “It is from exactly these experiences that I’ve learned the core problems — the lack of trust, vulnerable supply chain, inefficient data practices, etc. These rampant problems are spread throughout the entire healthcare system and blockchain is an obvious solution to combat most of these issues. I guess we can say that the need for blockchain in healthcare came from my own painful experience of working in the industry.”
He added, “We believe that information has a value and should be incentivized for sharing. We have a Token Exchange system where the participating parties of Member Network nodes are introduced to utility tokens to exchange information. Of course, this is only possible with the characteristics of blockchain technology, where trust is inherently embedded. This removes the need to protect one’s own information for a fear of losing an advantage.”
While healthcare is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world, PharmaTrace has been approached by several different government bodies and their high-ranking policymakers, inquiring to adopt the blockchain technology. They are already well aware of what blockchain technology can do for their problems, and that the upgrade is inevitable, Outaleb said.
He explained, “Before a patient receives a medicine, it goes through eight different entities to get to the end-user, starting with raw material suppliers to life science companies, CMO/CPOs, repackagers, wholesale distributors, dispensers then to pharmacies/hospitals/e-shops. Each of these phases should be appropriately traced with pertinent information. This entire process can be under regulatory surveillance and with the help of blockchain combined with AI/ML, provides real-time traceability, zero error status in auditing with fully automated processes and big data for analytics which will enhance operational efficiency. This would also mean a significant reduction of supply chain cost within 3 years.”
Outaleb concluded, “The senior management level of policy- and decision-makers constantly strive for the survival and expansion of their companies in the industry. Because innovation is the key, they are open-minded and unafraid of new technologies. Besides, what PharmaTrace offers has many attractive features that they can’t resist. It is a win-win deal.”