• Posted Feb. 18, 2020

Study: How an Enterprise Blockchain Application in the U.S. Pharmaceuticals Supply Chain is Saving Lives

A case study examined the progress of a MediLedger, a blockchain-based pharmaceutical supply chain system. The team focused on how blockchain applications can be used in the enterprise context, how they can add value, and what drives their adoption. Through interviews the team discovered how the project developed over time and how the developers solved the challenges that arose. Four lessons provide guidance to other firms.

The MediLedger Project has built a blockchain ecosystem application that prevents counterfeit pharmaceuticals from entering the U.S. pharmaceuticals supply chain. From the lessons learned, we make four recommendations: 1) use a “benevolent dictator” and base governance on “consensus through collaboration”; 2) store the verification of transactions, not the transactions themselves, on the blockchain; 3) use zero-knowledge proofs to verify product and transaction authenticity while preserving full privacy; 4) use blockchain application capabilities not found in traditional technologies to fix ineffective IS landscapes.

General Take-aways:

• The US pharmaceuticals market accounts for nearly half of the global market
• The MediLedger Project filled the void of a lack of a single integrated system to track and verify pharmaceutical products moving through the supply chain
• The objectives were to design a blockchain-based ecosystem application to meet newly emerging legal regulations and eliminate counterfeit pharmaceuticals in the supply chain

Four key lessons were learned:

1. Use a "benevolent dictator" and base governance on "consensus through collaboration"
2. In the blockchain ledger, store proofs that transactions were verified, not the transactions themselves
3. Use zero-knowledge proofs to verify product and transaction authenticity while preserving full privacy.
4. Use blockchain application technologies to fix ineffective traditional IS landscapes