Blockchain technology is increasingly being touted as the panacea for interoperability and security issues in healthcare organizations. According to the market intelligence report by BIS Healthcare titled, ‘Global Blockchain in Healthcare Market-Analysis and Forecast (2018-2025),’ the market is expected to register a CAGR of 63.85% during the forecast period. Further, partnerships and collaborations are the most widely used strategy by the prominent market players to gain popularity in the industry and to widen their consumer base, across the globe. For instance, Vice President and Head of Healthcare innovation and Trend at Humana, one of the leading company in the healthcare sector, Busy Burr, said, “Health is hard, but great breakthroughs may come from industry players collaborating around emerging, innovative technologies, to make life easier for doctors and patients.”
In April 2018, Austin based blockchain as a service company, Factom, came in a partnership deal with FPT Software, an IT service company stationed in Vietnam. The two enterprises will work together to develop a new blockchain technology platform through Factom Harmony. Factom Harmony is a system that creates audit records regarding data, decisions, activities, and events. The objective of the developed platform is to digitize and store files through simple APIs and Factom’s blockchain solutions so that information can become confirmable and auditable, respectively.1
In February 2018, Farma Trust, a UK blockchain startup and global tracking system, has officially signed a partnership with Mongolian Government to pilot a one-year project. The project aims to reduce the production and distribution of counterfeit medications. Farma Trust is providing the knowledge and experience in blockchain supply technology tracking with the goal of creating an immutable ledger that can track and secure pharmaceuticals supply chains using big data and artificial intelligence.2
In January 2018, Estonia based Halthureum announced a blockchain based 360-degree ecosystem for reliably administrating medical care. The company is to reduce the inefficiencies in operations, resources, data, data sourcing, and technology. With the help of blockchain, it will be easier to track the transaction modes between the key participants like drug manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacies, medical representatives, thus securing the product information.3
Adoption of blockchain technology can reduce the loss of pharmaceutical companies, which lose approximately $200 billion to counterfeit drugs, each year. The complete transparency in the drug supply chain can enable the blockchain technology to track the drugs to their point of origin, and thus, reduce falsified medications.
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