nickmezacapa / medicine-on-blockchain

A supply chain for the safe distribution of pharmaceutical drugs using blockchain technology and the power of AI.

The journey of medicine on blockchain. 💊

An AI-based solution for improving the process of bringing raw drugs and materials from suppliers to processed medicine in pharmacies.

Conflict 🤔

Effective supply chain management is the biggest challenge in every industry. However, there is additional risk and complexity in healthcare as a compromised supply chain that can affect the patient’s safety. Increased adoption of technology and globalization in an industry with multiple stakeholders has given rise to a complicated health supply chain.

Lack of transparency can spell disaster for consumers of pharmaceutical drugs. Counterfeit materials remain present, and tampering within the supply chain is difficult to investigate. Consumers deserve full knowledge and clarity of what they're putting in their body.

Solution 💡 🧠

My solution is an amalgamation of two powerful technologies - Blockchain and AI. Blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can efficiently record transactions between two parties in a verifiable and permanent way. Blockchain technology is decentralized, distributed, transparent, and immutable; thus it proves to be an effective implementation for pin-pointing counterfeit materials. AI in pharmacology can assist in matching patients to their optimal drug (or combination of drugs), predicting drug to target or drug to drug interactions, and optimizing treatment protocols.

This project proposes a system that uses blockchain and AI for a safe and optimized supply of medicine throughout the supply chain. Each product within the chain can be transferred between authenticated entities of the chain using an event request-response mechanism. All transactions between entities are recorded into the blockchain using smart contracts with the help of a product can be traced to its source. A Rasa chatbot is integrated to enable ordering, tracing medicine supply paths, and enhancing blockchain-based credit evaluation. A DApp was then developed using React Framework. The smart contracts were deployed on a local blockchain provided by Ganache. Using Web3.js and Truffle framework, DApp is connected to the blockchain. The experimental results show that the solution is feasible and arguably more secure than existing systems.

To deploy the Smart Contract 💰

1. Install Ganache and create a workspace.
2. Install Truffle npm package globally by running npm install -g truffle.
3. In the truffle-config.js file update the from: address to an address from your Ganache workspace.
4. Run truffle migrate --reset from the command line to deploy the smart contract to the blockchain.
5. Download Metamask Chrome extension to help interaction between the application and the blockchain.

To run React development server 🛠️

cd pharma
npm install
npm start

To run Node.js server

cd server
npm install
npm start

Related Links / Information Sources 📖

• https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-pharmtox-010919-023746#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20applications%20of,interactions%2C%20and%20optimizing%20treatment%20protocols.
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7577280/
• https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/resources/transparent-supply/pharma/
• https://hbr.org/2020/05/why-big-pharma-is-betting-on-blockchain
• https://www.leewayhertz.com/blockchain-in-pharma-supply-chain/

License ⚖️

MIT License

License Link

https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT