Blockchain-Based Medicine Supply Chain Management: A Survey on Traceability, Security, and Transparency
Keywords:
Blockchain, Counterfeit medicine detection, Internet of things, Permissioned blockchain, Pharmaceutical supply chain, Smart contracts, Supply chain managementAbstract
Medicine supply chains involve manufacturers, wholesalers, logistics providers, pharmacies, hospitals, and regulatory authorities. Conventional supply chains often depend on fragmented databases and paper-based records, which can create information silos, slow product verification, and increase the risk of counterfeit, diverted, expired, or improperly handled medicines. Blockchain technology provides a tamper-resistant distributed ledger that can record important supply-chain events and allow authorized participants to verify the provenance and movement of medicines. This paper surveys blockchain-enabled approaches for pharmaceutical supply-chain traceability, including smart contracts, product identifiers, IoT-assisted monitoring, off-chain storage, and permissioned blockchain networks. The reviewed approaches are assessed using traceability, transparency, security, interoperability, scalability, privacy, and regulatory compliance as major criteria. Based on recurring patterns in the literature, a conceptual four-layer architecture is proposed consisting of the Manufacturer, Supply-Chain Participants, Blockchain/Traceability, Ledger, and Pharmacy/Regulator layers. The framework is intended to support end-to-end medicine tracking, automated validation, faster recalls, and trustworthy verification while keeping large or sensitive information off-chain when required.
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