Blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical industry: a systematic review

PeerJ Comput Sci. 2022 Mar 11:8:e840. doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.840. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Blockchain technology is accelerating digital transformation across multiple industries, including the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry suffers from a lack of transparency, difficulty tracking products, lack of trust, and the shipment of expired products. Blockchain technology has been applied to solve several of these problems. In this paper, we present a systematic review of the literature focusing on the adoption of blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical industry. We collected, analyzed, qualified, and discussed studies retrieved from seven databases. The initial search yielded 2,185 papers, which were screened, discussed, voted on, critically appraised, and collected by a snowball workflow that finally yielded 38 papers. The blockchain application areas covered in the papers were classified as counterfeit drug prevention, drug distribution, tracking and tracing, and safety and security. The most frequent category was counterfeit drug prevention, which is consistent with the primary objective of the pharmaceutical industry. The newer topics discussed in this study were data governance, data quality, pharmaceutical turnover, and prescription drug monitoring. We discuss issues surrounding each of these topics and research studies, along with their limitations and solutions. We also examine the challenges and future research directions of applying blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: Blockchain; Counterfeit drugs; Drug safety and security; Drug traceability; Pharmaceutical industry; Systematic literature review.

Grants and funding

The authors were funded by the Researchers Supporting Program (TUMA-Project-2021-11), Almaarefa University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.