Project Brief:
Make quality drugs accessible to everyone.
Using blockchain, we hope to bring more transparency to the pharmaceutical industry, thereby helping consumer identify real drugs with a scan.
Team:
Manika Hennedige.
A passionate animal lover, Manika has worked at a veterinary clinic for more than a year. He is currently pursuing a double degree in Business and Computer Science at Nanyang Technological University
Lek Zhi Ying.
Double Degree student in Nanyang Technological University studying Business and Computing. An adventurous individual who is willing to explore different areas and learn new things.
Main Content:
Are you sure that the drugs you bought are effective/ authentic?
Counterfeit drugs pose a huge problem to the people’s health in many developing countries.
Ian Sample (2019). Fake drugs kill more than 250,000 children a year, doctors warn. From: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/11/fake-drugs-kill-more-than-250000-children-a-year-doctors-warn 
Fake medicine giving ASEAN a headache. From: https://theaseanpost.com/article/fake-medicine-giving-asean-headache 
Joel G. Berman (2019). It’s time to stop murder by counterfeit medicine. From: https://www.statnews.com/2019/05/07/stopping-murder-counterfeit-medicine/
“1 in 10 medical products in developing countries are fake”.
-World Health Organization (WHO)
High demand with limited supply for medicine, accompanied by unregulated pharmaceutical market in developing countries makes counterfeit drug a lucrative sector.
With the current Covid-19 outbreak, demand for medicine will only increase, making the counterfeit drug market even more lucrative.
How can one determine a drug’s authenticity?
Search for “how to identify counterfeit drugs” on Google search engine.
Common results include:
- Check for presence of active ingredients
- Look out for wrong dosages
- Name of manufacturers, lot number and batch number
- Take note of suspicious packaging
- Look out for abnormally low prices
But, what are the right ingredients or dosages?
The lack of medical knowledge among the public limit the effectiveness of these widely available visual inspections. Moreover, low prices does not always imply bad drugs.
But…
What if a SCAN and CHECK could do the job?
This is precisely our solution!
Additional information like authorities approval and certifications will also be shown on information page.
As such, you can be assured that your drug is legitimate.
Why are we confident?
Database implemented with blockchain technology.
Characteristics of blockchain tehnology:
- Immutable and cannot be corrupted
- Decentralized and open to public
- Enhanced security
Upon verification with manufacturers and authorities, details of authentic product will be available to public. The use of blockchain will then ensure the anti-corruption of this database.
Features
- Secured code features to mitigate code replication
- Meshbox integration to help consumer without internet access
- Reporting drugs to help tracing of counterfeits
Benefits
When consumers/ drug administers are equipped with the ability to check a drug’s detail against a reliable database, they can confidently affirm the authenticity of the drug on hand.
Fake drugs can be avoided
Medical incidents and deaths relating to fake drugs will be reduced, promoting good health and well-being among individuals.
Now what?
Understand legal issues regarding deployment of medical information on to blockchain and attain up to date information of approved and certified drugs in Singapore to update our database.
Develop an application with:
- API for secured code scanning
- Blockchain integration for database
- Website refinement on UX design
Market Testing
Our minimum viable product will be hawker food that adopts a delivery service.
By scanning the code on the packaging of the delivered food. Consumer can check and be assured that:
- Food received is as shown on the information page
- Food was delivered from the stall ordered
Towards Commercialization
- Every update of batch/lot will incur a transaction fee on the manufacturers (Using SMTs)
- QR code generation fee for each batch of a particular product
- Subscription fee for manufacturers to use our application