Today SAP announced that its blockchain solution the “SAP Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences” has gone live for the
U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain. Globally there’s a significant problem with counterfeit drugs. Given the sheer quantity of returned pharmaceuticals – nearly $7 billion a year in the U.S. – these are often re-sold. So there’s a risk that these returned drugs could be counterfeit.
Hence the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) requires that wholesalers verify the authenticity of the drugs before reselling them. The law comes into force in November 2019. According to Reuters, the global counterfeit market could be as big as $200bn a year.
The software enables customers to check the product code, lot, expiration date and serial number against the blockchain that stores the manufacturer’s data. It was developed as a co-innovation with AmerisourceBergen, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and others.
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