title: Evaluating the applicability of Bbockchains in the pharmaceutical supply chain
Creators: name: Zamponi, Giulia
Publisher: name: TU Wien
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Supply Chain
subject: Blockchains
subject: Pharmaceutical Industry
subject: PSS
subject: Smart-contracts
subject: Supply Chain
subject: Blockchains
subject: Pharmaceutical Industry
subject: PSS
subject: Smart-contracts

description: The term Blockchain is currently on everyone's tongue. The technology is attributed partly revolutionary, but also disruptive properties for a number of economic sectors. In the current discussion, the purposes are usually narrowed to the keywords Bitcoin or Smart Contracts but they actually go much further. (PwC Deutschland 2017) This paper is dedicated to the evaluation of the applicability of blockchains in the pharmaceutical supply chain in collaboration with the international pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. The pharmaceutical industry, in particular the pharmaceutical supply chain in Europe, is a highly complex, strictly regulated, GxP relevant and sensitive area that is currently undergoing tremendous changes in terms of industry 4.0 or the product safety and serialization plan that was rolled out by the EMA in a delegated act becoming effective beginning of 2019 (European Medicines Agency 2016) to further eliminate counterfeits. Blockchains may be an answer to some questions and challenges the pharmaceutical industry will be confronted with in the near future. Since the blockchain technology uses a decentralized database from technological point of view it can take over many more functions that were not applicable to currently used centralized platforms. Trust and transparency are created when platforms are non-manipulable and independent and for this reason, blockchain technology can be even used to interact in certain processes without any trusted third-party authority which saves time, a lot of paper and also money. Additionally, the whole system becomes less vulnerable to manipulations. (Heinen 2017) These are all important parameters in the pharmaceutical supply chain so blockchain might add all these aspects to a new level. In order to provide concrete recommendations of actions a model that helps identifying relevant processes for blockchain technology is developed.
description: The term Blockchain is currently on everyone's tongue. The technology is attributed partly revolutionary, but also disruptive properties for a number of economic sectors. In the current discussion, the purposes are usually narrowed to the keywords Bitcoin or Smart Contracts but they actually go much further. (PwC Deutschland 2017) This paper is dedicated to the evaluation of the applicability of blockchains in the pharmaceutical supply chain in collaboration with the international pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. The pharmaceutical industry, in particular the pharmaceutical supply chain in Europe, is a highly complex, strictly regulated, GxP relevant and sensitive area that is currently undergoing tremendous changes in terms of industry 4.0 or the product safety and serialization plan that was rolled out by the EMA in a delegated act becoming effective beginning of 2019 (European Medicines Agency 2016) to further eliminate counterfeits. Blockchains may be an answer to some questions and challenges the pharmaceutical industry will be confronted with in the near future. Since the blockchain technology uses a decentralized database from technological point of view it can take over many more functions that were not applicable to currently used centralized platforms. Trust and transparency are created when platforms are non-manipulable and independent and for this reason, blockchain technology can be even used to interact in certain processes without any trusted third-party authority which saves time, a lot of paper and also money. Additionally, the whole system becomes less vulnerable to manipulations. (Heinen 2017) These are all important parameters in the pharmaceutical supply chain so blockchain might add all these aspects to a new level. In order to provide concrete recommendations of actions a model