BLOCKCHAIN BASED FRAMEWORK FOR PREVENTING MEDICINE COUNTERFEIT IN CONTEXT OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

Medicine counterfeit has raised a major concern in recent years since it has become so widespread. Falsified and counterfeit drug production and distribution are not only illegal but also a public health concern. The intensity of this problem varies greatly among different geographical regions and countries; and highly dependent on how strongly the laws and procedures are maintained in a country. Preventing counterfeit medicines thus become a very important concern especially in developing and underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh. This research aims firstly, to outline the possible factors of medicine counterfeiting in the context of Bangladesh; secondly, to propose a blockchain based framework to prevent medicine counterfeiting; thirdly, to evaluate the proposed framework. Content analysis and systematic literature review were conducted to derive the current research gaps and future research opportunities. A semi­structured interview with the key personnel related to the medicine manufacturing and distribution system in Bangladesh was also carried out. Based on the interviews, content analysis, and systematic literature review, a set of use cases of preventing medicine counterfeit in the context of Bangladesh were explored. Considering the use cases derived, the required features for developing a digital solution were extracted. A blockchain based framework for preventing medicine counterfeit in the context of Bangladesh was proposed by adopting the extracted features. A prototype was developed based on the proposed framework and an evaluation study was also performed to evaluate the prototype. The evaluation study showed that the average block execution time is 646 ms. Again, the proposed framework was found as secured, scalable, customer­oriented, and practical comparing to other existing systems.