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.
