The pharmaceutical sector continually struggles with the problem of counterfeit drugs, which pose serious risks to public health and lead to considerable financial losses. Traditional supply chains often fall short in providing sufficient transparency, traceability, and security, creating opportunities for fake medicines to enter the market. This paper explores a blockchain-based solution designed to tackle this issue in the existing supply chain. By utilizing a decentralized ledger, smart contracts, and cryptographic verification, the proposed system provides complete traceability and transparency, ensuring the integrity and genuineness of pharmaceutical products. We introduce a multi-layered blockchain architecture, implemented locally using Hardhat, which allows manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies to monitor and validate drugs at every step. Preliminary conceptual results indicate that this approach improves security, streamlines verification processes, and strengthens accountability when compared to traditional methods. Keywords: Blockchain, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Counterfeit Drugs, Smart Contracts, Traceability, Hardhat
Vishvanath et al. (Wed,) studied this question.