Blockchain has potential to “change society”

Ahead of their session at Pharma IQ Live: Digital Supply Chain 2022, Daniel Fritz, Domain Architect in Supply Chain and External Supply, and his colleague at Novartis Marco Cuomo, Manager in Applied Technology Innovation, spoke to Pharma Logistics IQ about the potential for blockchain to transform pharma – and society – as we know it.  

Pharma Logistics IQ: How widely adopted is blockchain technology at the moment?
Marco Cuomo: It depends what you are looking at. We see Bitcoin working as a cryptocurrency, as a single purpose blockchain. In the future I think blockchain will find its place in the backend. End users will not see it, but mobile apps they use in the same way they are using today will have more features in the backend that make it more secure. 

I think blockchain has the potential to change the way we work together, even the way that society is functioning because you eliminate the middleman. Think about Bitcoin, it shows that you can have a currency without a national bank. If you democratize currencies and you don't have any national banks, that is a big shift in society.

Suddenly, politicians have to act differently. You see that a lot of nations like China are bringing out their own cryptocurrency because they want to control it, but that is not the idea behind it. That is using the technology, but still being in control of it. 

The potential for blockchain technology is immense. It might take 10 or 20 years, but we could have blockchain ensure all our valuable asset transactions are secured, without us even thinking about it. 

Pharma Logistics IQ: What does blockchain provide to the end user?
Daniel Fritz:  Blockchain technology is end-to-end, all the way from the raw materials to the patient and maybe beyond. In healthcare, we have long supply chains and we want to create a common layer that connects the different data silos and organizations. 

Right now, the biggest challenge we have is a secured exchange of data. If we have a common reference there, a single source of truth available to those that need it, then we can start to create new capabilities. 

For example, take a temperature monitoring system. We may not necessarily need blockchain for acquiring the data, but we can provide trusted results to different stakeholders. If you are the patient maybe you want to know that the correct temperature of a medication has been maintained and that the medication was produced in a sustainable manner. You might want the product information available electronically rather than on a leaflet that is in a different language. You could scan a code and your insurance will settle the payment directly, adding it to your electronic health record automatically. 

Since you have all of that information in your electronic health record, you could then monetize that data in the future. 

Pharma Logistics IQ: Has the Covid-19 pandemic increased awareness of blockchain? 
DF: The pandemic seems to have accelerated the whole thought process around it. When the pandemic started in early 2020, we still had the yellow vaccination booklets. We now use apps to store the certificates but there are thousands of instances of fake vaccination records. There needs to be a better way to guarantee the authenticity of records as well as medicines. 

Blockchain-enabled solutions could also provide additional information concerning the manufacturer, their sustainability practices and the transport conditions of the medicine.  Blockchain can enable that visibility. It would enable patients to make informed decisions about which product they want to take.  

We have also seen new collaborations in the pandemic where vaccine manufacturers did not have all the capacity that they needed, so other companies became contract manufacturers and perform that additional production to fill the gaps. Collaboration in the industry is a good sign because these types of issues cannot be solved by one company alone. That's the purpose of blockchain.  

Pharma Logistics IQ: How can blockchain strengthen supply chains? 
DF: In terms of visibility, knowing where the stock is. If there are not enough vaccine doses in one place, we could shift some of the vaccine supplies over there. Or if we see that something will expire in a week or two, we could use it up and avoid the waste. 

Blockchain also puts information in the hands of the patient. It lets them verify the product using the unique identifier on the pack, to increase their confidence in the authenticity of the product. You can have different law enforcement agencies, with limited resources trying to find counterfeiters, but another way to do it is enabling the consumer to do those checks. 

Pharma Logistics IQ: You mentioned earlier the importance of collaboration. Why is it so crucial for different stakeholders to get on board to enable more visible supply chains?
DF: The pharma supply chain today is what we call “API spaghetti”. It has very complex, very expensive integration between fragmented systems. [With blockchain] we have a common backbone, or foundation, where you can integrate just once. But that only works if your partners are also integrated to the same or interoperable solution. That is why we need collaboration on using a common network and common data standards. 

Pharma Logistics IQ: Can you tell us about the reasons for creating PharmaLedger?
MC: A bank makes sure that it manages data. If you take the bank out, you need a system to do it in its place. But with blockchain the difference is that no one owns that system, and the information is immutable. To enable that you can't do it alone, you need partners. That's why we started PharmaLedger. Novartis cannot design and build this alone, otherwise it's no different to a standard software you want to enforce others to use. We want this to be an infrastructure that everyone can use, that belongs to everyone with no one to control it and no middleman. 

Quick links

• Digitizing your cold chain operations to improve patient outcomes
• Why digital transformation is essential in the pharmaceutical supply chain
• How the Covid-19 pandemic has changed pharma logistics

Pharma IQ Live: Digital Supply Chain 2022 took place on April 26 - 27. You can still watch the event as well as Daniel Fritz and Marco Cuomo’s session How Can Blockchain Technology Provide a Transparent Single Source of Truth for Proof of Ownership and Integrity? on demand by registering for free here.