Yesterday, pharmaceutical collaborative Mediledger went live with its blockchain based Product Verification Solution for drug returns. This solution helps pharma companies and wholesalers to comply with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) regulations for November 2019, which require returned medicines to be authenticated.
The Product Verification Solution has been built to serialize drugs and track them across the entire supply chain, thereby preventing counterfeits from entering the system.
MediLedger is using blockchain to provide an immutable audit trail, which is crucially scalable to the massive US drugs industry. This removes much of the complexity of a conventional system, where many parties communicate over telephone and email to establish some sort of trust, subject to human error and delays. Instead, blockchain serves as a single source of truth.
Yesterday saw the launch of the consortium’s network, five months ahead of the DSCSA deadline. Parties along the whole supply chain are involved, including top manufacturers Genentech and Pfizer and leading wholesalers McKesson and AmerisourceBergen. These firms, along with other industry specialists and technology providers, operate nodes on the network.
“Our industry has come together over the last 18 months to define, build, and test the MediLedger Product Verification Solution,” summarized Chronicled CEO Susanne Somerville.
“We are especially thankful for the collaboration of the incumbent solution providers who are hosting and operating this truly decentralized blockchain network. We believe this is only the beginning of industry problems that can be solved using this innovative technology,” she continued.
MediLedger is also working on other blockchain projects, including a pilot for a program run by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Announced last month, the initiative boasts backers such as Walgreens and Walmart. It hopes to build an interoperable traceability system which meets other DSCSA regulations coming into force in 2023.
In May, MediLedger revealed its plans for a blockchain contracting solution. This project, with Pfizer and the wholesalers McKesson and AmerisourceBergen as well as group purchasing organization Premier, plans to add efficiency to current drug pricing arrangements. It’s the first MediLedger solution driven by business needs rather than complying with the DSCSA.
