New blockchain technology to fight entry of fake drugs into supply chain

A new technology will soon check the entry of fake pharmaceutical products into the supply chain, report Debasis Mohapatra and Sohini Das

In July this year, the drug regulator of Rajasthan found certain medicines by four leading pharmaceutical companies to be of substandard quality. When the companies were questioned, they examined the drugs and found that these had not been manufactured by them at all. The medicines were fake — part of the burgeoning counterfeit drugs industry in the country.

However, in spite of the proliferation of fake drugs in India, so far the efforts to combat the menace has been through traditional means — via tip-offs and surprise raids. For example, some years ago a fake drug manufacturing unit was busted near