Fantom, a South Korean blockchain firm, has officially launched a smart medicine project in partnership with the Afghan government. It is an initiative that focuses on exploring the potential of distributed ledger technology to remove counterfeit drugs from the supply chain. According to reports, the counterfeit drug industry is booming with a high inflow of counterfeit drugs on the market and nearly one billion people are dying from counterfeit drugs.
The Afghan government initiated an investigation in the drug import industry in 2017 after discovering more than 100 tons of counterfeit that contributed to the suspension of licenses for most concerned traders.
Smart medicine the ultimate solution to counterfeit drug
The project is based on blockchain, which helps the authorities to find out where the drugs are and who has handled them at any time. It will also help reduce the incidence of counterfeit drugs and improve the safety of patient medical records. Under the terms of the program, Fantom will initially track 80,000 products across four different pharmaceutical companies.
In addition Factors such as lack of consumer awareness and ineffective checkpoints have hindered efforts to combat fake drugs. They are commonly mixed with legal drugs in the chain. The Korean firm has also now established a set of major players in the pharmaceutical world, along with Nabros Pharma and Royal Star.
The project aims to monitor and deliver drugs on the market, including creams, sanitizers and chewable pills. The Smart Medicine project will boost efforts to rid the market of illegitimate drugs. Under the blockchain system, each commodity will be subject to mandatory conditions like bar code number, batch number production, expiry date, and Fda approval number, etc. Indeed, companies like Pharma will now scan labels and produce time-stamped data to form a tamper-proof audit trail. In addition, firms can now confirm the data before it is released on the market.