How blockchain can speed innovative medicines to the patients who need them
Recently, we were excited to share the world’s first iOS blockchain app for pharmaceutical supply chain. This has major implications for a trillion-dollar industry, not just because of what we’ve built in partnership with the Clinical Supply Blockchain Working Group (CSBWG), but the vision that the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies have put together. Today I’d like to share a small glimpse of the future.
The CSBWG has broad representation across the entire industry — Pharmas, CMOs, CROs, academic sites, and couriers, including seven members of the Fortune 500. Over the course of a year and a half as part of the CSBWG, we’ve quietly built out a pilot encompassing a shared vision based on a common challenge that faces the entire industry.
The number of active clinical studies has nearly doubled over the last 10 years, and clinical pharmacies are bursting at the seams. With personalized medicine on the horizon, this trend can only accelerate. The members of the CSBWG envision a collaborative blockchain solution as a paradigm shift to deliver a win for patients awaiting new medicines.
A shared vision for patients awaiting new medicines
The members of the CSBWG envision a collaborative blockchain solution as a paradigm shift to deliver a win for patients awaiting new medicines. As an immutable, time-stamped, near-real-time, auditable record of transactions, blockchain is well-suited to supply chains where numerous organizations handle sensitive information.
Digitalizing the clinical trial supply chain in order to replace manual processes and enhance data management is an enormous challenge, but one that could positively impact millions of patients in the next decade. Picking up the gauntlet, this consortium of industry leaders is working to build the framework that will take us into the 2020s. We’re honored to be working with them on this quest.
