Managing the transportation of temperature-controlled products continues to grow increasingly. According to Pharmaceutical Commerce’s annual BioPharma Cold Chain Sourcebook- in 2021 the pharma cold chain logistics is predicted to be $16.6 billion industry. This includes the transport of temperature-controlled goods along a supply chain through refrigerated and thermal packaging procedures and the logistics planning to safeguard the integrity of the shipments.

Understanding the pain points

In the healthcare industry, the pharmaceutical cold chain is a key part of the supply chain and cold chain logistics services help the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry maintain a continuous supply of drugs from distributors and suppliers in various locations.

Nowadays more high-value active ingredients are being used in drug manufacturing that have a short shelf life and come with strict temperature requirements. Hence the need for monitoring and temperature control through the complete supply chain has grown manifolds. Even the drugs that are typically safe at room temperature may need practices to avoid the spikes that come with related transportation.

Logistics providers are now receiving increasing requests for Controlled Room Temperatures which involves the usage of refrigerants, insulated containers, temperature-monitoring electronics, and thermal blanketing. With products being handled multiple times from suppliers to end-user, there is a requirement of an assemblage of temperature controls to maintain quality, coordinated actions, and monitoring tools along the entire supply chain.

The biggest challenge with cold chain logistics is to maintain a certain temperature range throughout the delivery cycle. Multiple variables impact the length of time a product’s temperature is considered controlled. Temperature-controlled transportation requires specialized equipment and trucks, and skilled drivers.

Monitoring the temperature is another huge challenge and without that in place pharmaceutical manufacturers lose control over their goods as it moves up in the supply chain.

Besides that, increasing pharmaceutical mandates and globalization is causing many pharma manufacturers to implement more strict protocols to stay ahead of the regulation. For instance, in European Union, almost 80% of pharma products need temperature-controlled transportation.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the cold chain’s role in the pharmaceutical industry. With temperature-controlled vaccines for the virus, there is a need for optimizing the entire supply chain for the industry.

Traceability across the supply network

To ensure product quality there is a need for a system to track unit-level items, identifying issues, finding an optimized solution, communicate an action plan, and compose a response. Supply networks function based on the trading relationships between manufacturers, producers, retailers, suppliers, distributors, and consumers. Full traceability across the supply network that includes visibility across final products, raw materials, and intermediaries across trading partners and to the end consumer.

Monitoring

The companies that outsource logistics, their carriers and providers become an important part of the process with a high level of risk. To avoid the risk, recordable devices such as RFID tags and sensor technologies can enable companies to manage and monitor supply chains.

Digitization and Visibility

Most of the pharma companies are now working towards digitization. The main objective is visibility on demand into each business process right from production to sale. By digitizing the entire supply chain process pharma companies get better control and coordination and they can base their decisions on reliable data and information. The use of technologies such as IoT to collect real-time and relevant data and cloud platforms- to manage the data and make sense of it for your business needs and supply chain.

The demand for visibility across the supply chain due to increase in globalization that includes temperature monitoring and location irrespective of where in the world product is moving, is driving the technology market to create solutions to deliver and track data in real–time.

Final Word

To meet the varying demands and not to mess up an already complex process, the cold chain logistics in the pharmaceutical industry needs to be based on three points- service, agility, and cost-effectiveness.

Furthermore, with the expanding reach of the pharmaceutical cold chain sector the logistic providers, manufacturers, and carriers will need to continue to coordinate their efforts to address the ongoing cold chain challenges in the pharmaceutical industry.

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Blockchain In Life Sciences And Healthcare

Blockchain is a powerful technology that leverages distributed ledgers among different parties and helps them secure unanimous trust. This new technology has the potential to impact all aspects of business across industries. The decentralization of applications for life sciences and health care results from consistent innovation by technology giants from the field of healthcare.

The Problem Of Counterfeit Drugs

One of the most significant challenges faced by the healthcare industry presently is the counterfeiting of drugs. The issue is that the healthcare supply chain is quite huge, starting from the raw material supplier for drugs ending at the patients, the final consumers. This makes the channel highly vulnerable where groups and people with malevolent intentions of introducing spurious drugs are continually working on flooding the circuit with counterfeit drugs. There is no regulator over this stretched supply chain, and the rewarding benefits of counterfeiting drugs motivate people with malicious intentions to produce low quality and duplicate drugs. Moreover, they supply them masked among the enormous lots of original and high-quality drugs.

The counterfeit drugs, when they reach the final consumers or the patients, put them under immense health risk due to its low quality or due to the wrong drug being distributed masked in original medicines. This has become a huge matter of concern for the healthcare sector as it has caused several other illnesses among patients and even deaths due to the consumption of counterfeit drugs. This has a direct impact on the brand and reputation of pharmaceutical manufacturers as well. 

This typically happens because consumers cannot differentiate between original and counterfeit medicines. Most people think that drugs from a particular company or brand are not effective in treating them, which is one reason for distrust in the healthcare system. Even doctors are facing the wrath of this menace as patients blame them for wrong prescriptions. The U.S Congress, to tackle this issue, enacted the Drug Supply Chain Security Act in 2013, which required that by 2023 the pharmaceutical companies should adopt an “interoperable system,” which will allow FDA to trace and identify the prescription drugs.

How Can Blockchain Resolve The Issue Of Counterfeit Drugs?

Blockchain is one of the most trustworthy distributed ledger technologies in today’s times. Every transaction can be documented permanently, and it is impossible to do any virtual alteration, forgery, or misrepresentation. This technology offers highly efficient supply chain management. These solutions are difficult to be compromised by any individual or group with malicious intentions. It allows the healthcare industry to set up nodes at various places to help the industry overcome the temporal and geographical challenges across the globe. 

Blockchain creates a tamper-proof and transparent record of the transaction on blocks as a shared ledger. All members can maintain a copy of the ledger, which gets updated almost in real-time. Each block within the Blockchain is linked to another block and has a timestamp that cannot be altered, which makes the information stored on blocks about the drugs irreversible. If anyone tries to alter the data, it will be highlighted immediately. In a nutshell, circulating fake drugs becomes possibly the most difficult we have seen with the use of blockchain technology.

The movement of drugs is visible to all authorized members of the Blockchain and is also traceable in real-time when it moves from one party to another. Moreover, consumers can verify the authenticity of the purchased drugs by scanning the bar code or the QR code. Besides that, they can also check the information about the manufacturer and any other relevant details.

Blockchain Is A Secure And Transparent Solution To The Healthcare Sector

Companies worldwide have already started exploring blockchain technology to prevent counterfeit drugs since this issue has caused incredible harm to patients, and colossal losses to many companies. Besides the patient harm and monetary loss, there is direct damage to the brand’s reputation and credibility, which is undoubtedly unhealthy for business. The advent of advanced technology like Blockchain can help curb the problems faced by the life sciences and healthcare sectors. It can help in better and faster tracking of the complete supply chain. 

With the rise in the illegal trade of counterfeit drugs in recent times, Blockchain, even though in its nascent stage, can play a pivotal role in flattening this menace’s curve globally.

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