Connectivity in Pharma Supply chain through Blockchain

[Music] hi everyone i'm really excited for what's to come in this afternoon we have finished a few panels around nfts the new internet and now we start a few sessions related to healthcare and i am today joined by daniel lavrick he is vp of digital and data solutions and adjulic pharma which is one of the largest healthcare groups in asia welcome daniel very nice to meet you and welcome to the show so much um hi everyone my name is daniel lovrick i'm the vice president of digital and data solutions for zulu pharma and i'm honored to be at the european blockchain convention um i'm really excited to be here today um and to share how blockchain has transformed enterprises beyond the world of finance you know in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries they're very closely watched especially during this period of the pandemic um and so blockchain has had a defining role to play um today i'd like to share and lead with this keynote to really share how blockchain can build trust and reconfigure collaboration in pharma feel free to share any questions in the chat and we'll do our best to to visit them towards the end so to begin with um just just briefly really who are zulu farmer um and so zuri farmer is one of the largest healthcare services groups in asia we provide world-class distribution digital and commercial services to support growing healthcare needs in the region with the mission of making health care more accessible the company was started almost 100 years ago and today it's a 13 billion company with more than 12 000 employees as the leading distributor in the region we have more than 90 coverage of healthcare customers in key markets in asia and this includes the top 10 pharma manufacturers pharma companies so really beyond being one of the top distributors in asia what we aim to build or aim to do is really build an integrated ecosystem and from there we drive great value for our patients and our clients and this goes from from everything you can see there on the screen from from clinical reach uh to distribution which is really what we do best and now we're really strengthening our digital and data arms and through through that we're obviously leveraging blockchain and and automation as well so really what are the challenges that we see in in the in the farming industry really around collaboration and you know according to research the global pharma pharmaceutical market was valued in more than 400 billion in 2020. so this is obviously a multi-billion dollar industry um it really is drawing the attention of counterfeiters all looking to flip the market and through that we're also seeing that there's other challenges uh really around operational inefficiencies which then have a knock-on impact or threaten patient safety and obviously then there's a impact from family revenue as well so personally uh obviously rampant counterfeits of medical products really hurt brand trust in product integrity and certainly in the areas that we are in in asia you know according to the world health uh organization more than one in ten medicines in developing countries have been estimated uh to be falsified um furthermore farmers pharmaceutical security institute found in 2020 an increase of 23 percent more types of medicine across uh therapeutic categories are being counterfeited and obviously this is then at least a huge huge sums in over 2.3 billion dollars in lost revenue and that's in southeast asia alone so with counterfeits so widely available this this obviously has a huge impact on patient safety and it's a great risk so secondly besides the counterfeit medicines substandard medicines also pose a threat and again in 2020 ayata reported one in four vaccines are degraded due to cold chain inefficiencies and there's also loss of revenue 35 billion dollars globally due to temperature excursions of healthcare products and reports across asia have shown that vaccines have shown vaccines that have been exposed to heat and are damaged and damaged products are then administered and obviously this causes uh public panic and frustrations so in response to the lack of check and balances the public and authorities are now demanding more quality assurance and this is through detailed reports harsher penalties and obviously stricter regulations so besides the version of trust due to growing counterfeits and substandard medicines the the farming pharmaceutical supply chain is also faced with a lack of data integrity integration traceability and vigilance and so really along the the supply chain we've seen that stakeholders work in different silos and this impedes collaboration and although product information is captured at each stage in the supply chain the data is not shared and we don't have a trustworthy solution that integrates the various systems and without an integrated system counterfeits can can easily slip in at any point due to lack of vigilance in addition to this one consequence of poor data integration is the lack of analytical insights and so no interoperable system that can help collect the data and really hard to then identify operational inefficiencies and gaps and obviously this then opens up risks and and loss in revenue so really what did we we set out to do so zulli farmer we really were determined to find a solution to combat these challenges and really enable end-to-end product traceability and so by doing that you know we're looking at one true source of data to improve data visibility and material traceability how can we build this on a data compliant infrastructure and then from there being able to offer insightful and actionable analytics for farmer manufacturers to tackle um any operational inefficiencies and together these if we can do this this obviously then builds trust for the ecosystems that all everybody can access and rely on the data with confidence and so really true to to zurich farmer's mission we wanted to use blockchain as a solution that would make safe healthcare more accessible and as i mentioned with more than one in ten medicines being counterfeited and millions of dollars in in revenue being lost each year zulu's farmer's end-to-end blockchain solution which we call easy tracker um really provides instantaneous material traceability uh to help combat this this going threat the solution is is being rolled out in our key asian markets it's live in hong kong thailand korea and malaysia and really the team we work closely with our pharma manufacturers really to design solutions using blockchain to rebuild the kind of trust within the community in our efforts to engage and foster collaboration with with patients and healthcare practitioners we have a mobile app that serves as a product information verification tool um and um you can see that the the app itself has been um downloaded more than 30 well actually we have more than 30 000 active users and we've gone past 130 close to 150 000 product scans so far so let's um really just watch a quick video which will uh explain a little bit about how easy tracker connects pharma clients to patients to the various product features built by zulig pharma an award-winning distributor in asia easy tracker is an end-to-end blockchain solution that improves pharma supply chain connectivity and traceability for patient safety easy tracker helps pharma manufacturers healthcare professionals and patients via an increase in security and compliance greater transparency and scalability through these four areas secure data management with clear chain of custody ease of verifying product authenticity and reporting incidents ensure optimal temperatures for vaccines by accessing secure and accurate temperature reports with quality assurances track trace and obtain reports of potential gray market products which can hurt patient safety and brand [Music] trust process payments effectively and enjoy hassle-free auto replenishment as you track and rectify product returns and expired products achieve operational excellence with easy tracker today visit easytracker.io or download the easytracker app on the google play store or app store built so um really how does the the the the solution or the system fit together so the blockchain has become the really the one-two platform to connect all the stakeholders and so there's there's six key solution components um that really help to simplify workflows and enable product traceability obviously underpinning all of this is a blockchain network um really this enables non-intrusive data exchange real-time traceability and data security then from uh from the blockchain network um pharmaceutical manufacturers can benefit from the easy tracker digital id and this is where products are serialized entered onto the blockchain and then they're tagged as part of the the warehouse operations activities and the data points are stored in the supply chain journey and easy tracker operations really integrates various warehouse systems like sap and jda into our blockchain and this provides a predefined operational process for seamless adoption and then the easy tracker the data analytics and this is where the farmer manufactures and that the leaders there can use the dashboards to extract and analyze the data that's tagged to each uni item and for healthcare practitioners there's a fifth component uh really this is all around connectors and so how can we really seamlessly make it as easy as possible integrate with clinic and hospitals hospital systems to to help capture the tagging and dispensing of activities to each product and then lastly there's a very simple mobile app which empowers um patients and healthcare practitioners to verify the medicine that it comes from an authorized source and then to help report any fakes or counterfeits as and when they are detected one thing we saw very very um very early in building out the solution is really the importance of interoperability across blockchain networks and really how do we break the silos um make um the adoption as easy as possible and really help to strengthen collaboration and so to enable this we designed a unified interface and components for the solution which really allows um it to connect or with different blockchain networks so using ledger specific plugins for each blockchain network our blockchain can now connect to other networks such as ethereum quorum uh or other hyperledger fabrics and look into the future what we hope to do is to invite more from farmer manufacturers governments healthcare and private organizations across the world to connect with us to really help us increase information sharing and bring forth more value-added use cases that can could advance the pharmaceutical industry so to make um traceability possible inspiration easy tracker had to design a blockchain infrastructure that allows for seamless and secure data transfer and what we see on this slide here is that the different manufacturers have their own data management systems and in order to obtain the data and upload it into the blockchain network we can use an extract transform load or etl system and also apis is a convenient way to to upload product data securely into the blockchain once the the blockchain network receives the data it will perform smart contract verifications and update the ledger and this makes sure that the data is accurately captured and securely shared to all the partners uh in the blockchain network and this helps to obviously facilitate the product usability um and so to easily and quickly bring up a blockchain node for any participant with a cost efficient manner obviously we run this all on cloud cloud computing comes as the best solution and we're cloud agnostic the infrastructure and and so together with with all the other elastic services flexibility scalability and security that come with it so with blockchain at the core easy tracker presents a solution that can help strengthen the pharma supply chain first to address the challenge of counterfeits uh blockchain ledger enables us to track and trace and verify products through the supply chain and this helps to create confidence that the products are quality assured easy tracker also tracks what we call grey market imports and this is products that turn up in a in a place where they shouldn't be and this helps to prevent revenue loss and also strengthen brand trust with with local regulations next to address suboptimal storage conditions of drugs we've integrated temperature loggers and and pharma databases and embedded them into the blockchain to improve visibility of products that are stored in in the cold chain and so now all stakeholder holders can verify storage and delivery temperature conditions and this obviously then gives an added quality assurance of how the product was was stored and transported and we also utilized blockchain to start to improve operational efficiencies in in healthcare organizations and using the solution it helps to monitor monitor inventory demand automate the replenishment process for clinics and this minimizes out of stock medicine saving time and resources and lastly to make product information more accessible with the the blockchain network we really have been able to look at how we could switch and the product information leaflets from paper to digital um and obviously to improve uh regulations so that recalls it and more efficiently and updates can be done in a much more controlled manner so the the solution itself can be customized and the whole idea is to really unlock value for for our pharmaceutical manufacturers first as an alternative to building an in-house team it can be costly and time-consuming pharma companies can rely on easy chocolate for support and focus on strategic initiatives instead which is giving them peace of mind and these help farmer leaders optimize resources at a lower cost secondly easy tracker unlocks innovation for pharma companies given the secure and seamless data management through blockchain and cloud they can now access analytics easily and rely on a trusted system that's already been deployed in multiple countries multiple markets across asia so using blockchain and supply chain processes helped unlock valuable data for farmer manufacturers and the data that can be captured and organized via the the dashboards is really helping our farm manufacturers to identify grey markets and actors information creating better platforms for collaboration with governments authorities and even healthcare organizations and some of the benefits we've seen include material traceability and through the charts and geolocation maps and graphs farmer principles can really monitor their operations they can gain more in-depth insights through data monitoring in in near real time they can identify inefficiencies and alert clients of any disruptions within the warehouse and um as a second point the farmer and manufacturers can really then view their product journey so really the serialization of products down to the individual pack level and and this gives a much more granular um information very easily they can flag potential counterfeits in the in in their respective markets um and we really am empowering pharma principles with the right tools and data in the if there is any in investigations efforts that need to take place and this obviously then helps to protect product integrity brand trust and and revenue so not forgetting that patients and healthcare practitioners um they really we have a very simple user-friendly mobile app and it's available for instant verification of the product source and storage conditions and so really through a scan uh very verification is is made easy as data is quickly extracted from from the blockchain network first you can track a tracing track registered product source second users uh uh notified if a product's distribution source is not recognized by easy tracker and this helps to identify potential counterfeits and users can report such incidents to through the app and lastly for temperature sensitive products users can verify product storage conditions and the blockchain network will capture scans and the location in order for our clients to better understand patient behavior and how they are interacting with the products so here's a very simple example of how our solution fosters collaboration between three three key stakeholders and this is the pharma manufacturers hcps and patients so if we start to start from the from the left you know clear a patient wants to get a vaccine at clinic a however news about possible counterfeits has been on the rise she's worried that the vaccine administered might be counterfeit and the hcp administration the vaccine is also concerned about the batch of vaccines that's been received so how can claire and her doctor be sure that the vaccine is from from a trusted source and with the easy tracker mobile app claire and the doctor can both access information on the blockchain to confirm a that the vaccine is from an authorized distributor and b that the vaccine has been stored at an optimal temperature for maximum efficacy so really using blockchain stakeholders in the supply chain can now be connected on a trusted platform and this really transforms the ecosystem from the individual silos to now a connected near real-time solution with end-to-end product traceability not only does the patient and the hep now feel more assured they can even do their part to report products that return unrecognized scans and this in turn helps improve efforts taken by farmer manufacturers you can then access the report information and investigate potential counterfeits in the market and again what we're trying to do here is really just create a safer environment for all um and so across asia easy track has been used to improve operational efficiencies and and combat counterfeits in 2020 the thailand authorities seized over 400 000 counterfeit beauty products including botox easy trucker was deployed in thailand to help beauty injectable manufacturers empower their patients with the ability to verify if the injectables are authentic or not in real time and really this was all to rebuild trust in the products and track potential counterfeits for further investigation in korea easy tracker collaborated with farmer manufacturers to explore using temperature traceability to improve operational efficiencies we designed a solution which track products via serialized info information and tag to temperature and logistics information across the cold chain making traceability possible from warehouse to cold room healthcare workers and patients are also empowered to check the product's integrity before administration and in hong kong we're part of a tripartite with a pharma client and a clinic management system and this collaboration involves automating inventory reordering processes analyzing and analyzing patient behavior with easy tracker hostile replenishment feature healthcare practitioners can save time and resources to focus on more important matters like patient care and similar to thailand easy tracker was deployed in in hong kong to help with the verification of vaccines um and the distribution source integrated with clinic management systems a healthcare practitioner we interviewed shared that there is an increased ease in tracing which specific box of vaccine was administered to each patient and this really improves the traceability and gives added peace of mind and so for another we'll just play another very quick video and this will really show how easy it is to use the mobile application as we navigate ongoing concerns about global health how can we be assured that the medical products we use are genuine and stored safely before they reach us to improve consumer confidence and safety zulig pharma has launched easy tracker an innovative and secure blockchain solution with just one scan we can track and verify if your product is safe for you delivering unparalleled levels of quality control and compliance you can trust verification is now made easy in the palm of your hand download the easy tracker app today an easy solution for your peace of mind as so i i really hope you enjoyed this time and and learned more about um the blockchain application in pharma pharmaceutical industry so so thanks for your time and if you're interested to explore how we could collaborate or collaborate with us do reach out at the easytracker zulifama.com and i think now we would open the floor if there's any questions during the presentation hello daniel thanks for a very clear presentation we got many questions from the audience if we cannot cover all of it just a message to the audience daniel and his team they have a virtual stand in our exhibition uh area on the platform but now we still have four minutes left so we will go quickly to as many questions as we can then if that's okay so the first question is is uh is that tracker built on a public or a private blockchain i think you already covered that but what is the blocks in technology under ez tracker maybe hyperledger fabric correct exactly uh we we run the easy tracker on on hyperledger fabric yeah question number two can blockchain completely eliminate the problem of counterfeits or only reduce it but how much how has blockchain helped in the fight against counterfeits today versus in the past where there was no blocks in technology that's a great um it's a great question yeah you know we we have to try and keep one step ahead of the counterfeits counterfeiters um i think this is a constant fight and we we are starting to to win uh but the counterfeiters are constantly evolving and they're bringing up new techniques um previously it was nobody knew everybody knew there was a there was potentially an issue with counterfeits in the market but nobody knew how to do anything about it i think what we now are able to do is is actually highlight that there is a is a problem and and pass this information on to authorities who can then go and do something about it so i think um i think it certainly has as highlighted what everybody knew was happening in in the markets that we operate in um but i think it's a constant battle because we're already seeing that uh counterfeiters are kind of evolving the techniques constantly so yeah it's i don't know as we will ever completely eliminate it but at least it's it's starting to help yeah crime is always ahead right question number three in case of private permission at ledgers fabric for example who owns and runs the nodes is it supposed that every participant should run a node yeah exactly um that's that's the ideal solution that we would want to get to you know to make it a truly distributed um ledger that everybody is in control of their own node in control of their own data um and and we don't have to get into this this whole data ownership passing data to different parties and and we get back to where we were with square one with in silos with nobody sharing the data so ideally that's where we need to get to okay we have 25 seconds left maybe the last question quickly and the last message to the audience so the question goes like this is there a consortium behind is a tracker uh yes that's in the in the process again you know the whole idea is this is um it's not a it's not owned by anybody so there will be a consortium that that governs and runs the the entire network and and that work is underway to transition it over into consortium thank you very much daniel daniel and his team as i said before they have a virtual stand here on the platform and also i'm seeing on the slide that he's sharing his email so if you do have more questions please reach out thank you daniel