FarmaTrust: Mending the wrecked drug supply chain

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Since time immemorial, man has always sought to improve his standard of living. His persistent and unrelenting search for better ways to do things has culminated in the numerous developmental stages that our world is passing through today. Man’s regular exploration of the natural world however exposed him to some dangers that only medical science could provide answers to.

THE ADVENT OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

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Man's use of various substances of medicinal value to solve his health issues are as old as man himself. Drugs happen to be one of man’s most important inventions and he has been actively involved in developing substances that ensured that his various health issues were kept in check.

Early on, man discovered that plants were inevitable sources of medicine. With this knowledge in mind, local apothecaries were able to produce and distribute various botanical drugs of which Morphine and Quinine were a majority, a big look-alike to our modern, more advanced, pharmaceutical industry.

The modern pharmaceutical industry as we know it today, however, only emerged in full force in the mid-19th century with the transition from botanicals to the very first synthetic drugs. Through the end of the 19th century and in the early 1900s, the various advancements in science saw that the pharmaceutical industry increased in its production and discovery. Till the present moment, the pharmaceutical industry has been highly instrumental in developing, producing and marketing of drugs for use in treating human ailment.

AND THEN THIS…

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The popular saying, ‘the end of a problem is the beginning of another’ cannot be over emphasized as just when we were enjoying the breakthrough we had secured in the fight against bad health, another challenging problem was encountered-Falsification. Though the advancements in technology gave us tremendous victory over illnesses, it also gave criminals an avenue for perpetrating various crimes.

At a time when poor people cannot afford to see a qualified doctor and get proper medication, purchase of drugs from local drug sellers and online sales of drugs have become the real deal. This is where the counterfeits come in. Unlike in the past when counterfeits could be differentiated from the originals by their shape and smell, the advancements in technology has made it such that a counterfeit can only be differentiated from the original by a proper laboratory analysis. As a result, hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting drug users fall victim to this plot, with many paying with their lives.

The ugly beast of counterfeiting has not only led to numerous deaths around the globe, it has also reduced the efficiency of poor workers especially in Southeast Asia and many parts of Africa resulting in the crumbling of the economies of the countries involved. Many kids have been turned to orphans overnight because of this terrible monster.

According to a recent report by PWC, over 30% of the drugs in circulation globally are fake. Also, statistics have shown that over 50% of the drugs bought online are either fake or substandard. In response to this, various organizations and agencies around the world have risen to address this issue but all we see is more of the Perpetrators put in prison and the menace of counterfeiting still increasing rapidly. This anomaly therefore shows that more than the production of quality drugs, there is the need for a transparent and secure supply chain which would ensure that only quality drugs are deposited at the end of the supply chain. It was in response to this that FarmaTrust was established.

WHAT THEN IS FARMATRUST?

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FarmaTrust is a global tracking system that helps to monitor and secure the drugs that fall in the Pharmaceutical supply chain with a view to eliminating counterfeits and securing the pharmaceutical Supply chain. They have made this possible using blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and big data analysis. . FarmaTrust is secure, transparent and autonomous. With FarmaTrust, you can be sure that all drugs you purchase online or anywhere else would be genuine.

By adding a unique RFID tag to a drug, the drug can be traced at any time and the odds of getting a counterfeit for such drug is low. For all transactions carried out online, the Blockchain not only helps to eliminate unnecessary intermediates, but also to provide a high level of trust and transparency. Only trusted parties are allowed in the blockchain.

Unlike in the past when there was no way of validating a drug, with FarmaTrust, every drug comes with a specific bar code that could be scanned anywhere and at any time using the easy to use FarmaTrust app to ensure its validity. Quite unlike other rival tracking system such as Ambrosus, FarmaTrust is fully focused on the Pharmaceutical industry, a move that would definitely increase efficiency. By incorporating AI into its system, FarmaTrust is able to increase on all fronts the efficiency and revenue of the Pharmaceutical industries. This ensures that any drug can be traced along the supply chain. The pharmaceutical industry can therefore count on FarmaTrust to cut the supply chain cost while also reducing the number of counterfeit drugs.

LOGIC BEHIND FARMATRUST

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FarmaTrust has its roots on the blockchain technology. With this, it would be possible to keep a record of original drugs that have been documented on the blockchain. With the blockchain technology, drugs are tracked right from when they are manufactured to when they get to the consumer at the very end of the supply chain. This, as outlined above is achieved by attaching a unique digital reference to the drug.

Tracking of drugs would be facilitated by FarmaTrust’s ‘Zoi’ platform. Zoi is a distributed supply chain exchange and would be effect in the tracking of drugs. Through Zoi, a connection between Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturers, Suppliers, distributors, pharmacies and hospitals, reducing the supply chain cost in the process. Zoi, therefore, would be instrumental in bridging the gap between the producer and the consumer.

RELIEF AT LAST

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After all is said and done, humans can now be rest assured that the initiative by FarmaTrust would go a long way in drastically reducing the deaths attributed to the use of fake drugs. With FarmaTrust, the world of counterfeits would be reduced to a minimum, ensuring that pharmaceutical industries save more money and become more efficient in their duties. Poor people in diverse nations of the world would finally be given the right medication that they deserve to enable them live and impact the world.

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