Stabilising The Biologics Supply Chain with Blockchain

The counterfeit business is booming. Counterfeit goods account for a whopping 27 billion EUR in revenue lost annually in the Pharma industry due to counterfeits. Moreover, it has an extensive negative impact, leading to product recalls, lawsuits, consumer illness or death, and eventually, long-term reputational harm. Blockchain helps tackle counterfeiting by identifying the provenance (i.e., proof-of-origin) of a product because blockchain provides a secure and trusted tracking system from one end of the supply chain (the creation or mining of raw materials) all the way to the other end of the supply chain (where the end user enjoys the finished product). Because blockchain can identify provenance, legal enforcement agencies can more conclusively establish the counterfeit nature of suspect products, and pharma companies can protect their bottom line, ultimately stabilizing and creating a more resilient supply chain.

Presented by Alexandru Popa, Associate Director, Blockchain for Pharma Supply Chain at MSD

An engineer at heart, Alex is a T-shaped professional with deep interdisciplinary knowledge and a passion for digital transformation in healthcare. He enjoyed positions throughout his career in technical operations, solutions delivery, infrastructure architecture, product management, agile transformation, consultancy, innovation, and strategy. In his current role, Alex is using both business and technical skills to orchestrate business and technology professionals working diligently to integrate the blockchain with underlying enterprise capabilities and supervise the development of custom-built protocols and applications focused on particular use cases that can relieve pain points to challenges in the Pharma industry.