The students of the NRG conduct investigations in many different facets of biopharmaceuticals- related research. Terms such as chromatography, western blot and flow cytometry may sound very familiar in context of research conducted by the NRGians, but the mention of the term ‘blockchain’ may seem a little tangential. Yesterday, our Ph.D. scholar Dr. Amita Puranik published an article entitled “Demystifying the Potential Applications of Blockchain Technology in Pharma and Biopharma Industry- A bird’s eye view”. This article highlights the fact that the operations in Pharma and Biopharma industries are not really independent of each other but benefit tremendously by integration of newer technologies and advancements in these individual fields.
The term ‘blockchain technology’ may resonate with terms like cryptocurrencies and NFTs (non-fungible transactions). While the latter employ blockchain technology at their core, the blockchain technology is a system having the potential to change the way in which data may be shared and exchanged between people, including people working in research and healthcare.
The way we access information using the internet is mostly through a centralised system. Here, information is sent to a platform or a publisher, also known as an intermediary, who hosts that information for everyone to access, albeit sometimes blocked via paywall. Blockchain differs as it obviates the intermediary. It is a continuously updated record of information and the holders of that information. This information is split into many blocks and then secured via cryptography. All the records that are held in a blockchain are maintained in a list known as the ‘distributed ledger’. Since all the information in a blockchain is split into many blocks, this information becomes decentralised and is therefore available to everyone to access and verify. Moreover, since the information is distributed among many blocks, tampering with this information becomes very difficult, which lends a sense of automated trust in the system.
So how can blockchain technology be used in healthcare? That’s what Amita’s article explores in detail. All the players in pharma industries often work with the same datasets in order to develop their healthcare strategies. By decentralising information, the pharma and biopharma industries can streamline processes, reduce operational costs, remove fraud and duplicity, provide trust, and enable data integration in a sharing-based economy. Even in case of competing interests, organisations working in these sectors could work together using a shared permanent ledger, which would allow them to work on the same datasets without having to give up the system control or reveal any critical information. Healthcare systems can therefore utilise blockchain technology for drug discovery, authenticating healthcare professionals, healthcare payments, accessing records of clinical trials and healthcare and supply-chain management. Blockchain technology offers incredible traceability; it can even be employed for protection of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) and for protecting the integrity of scientific information.
Amita’s article beautifully summarises the challenges that the healthcare industry has encountered thus far and how blockchain technology, in near future, can be used to overcome these challenges. We direct you to Amita’s article to learn about further possibilities and details of how blockchain technology may be explored to benefit the biopharma and pharma industries!
References:
1.Https://Www.Pharmafocusasia.Com/Information-Technology/Demystifying-Potential-Applications-Blockchain. https://www.pharmafocusasia.com/information-technology/demystifying-potential-applications-blockchain. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
2.Why Blockchain Matters More Than You Think! www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNN0uH2Z3o. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
