Blockchain-enabled pharmaceutical cold chain: applications, key challenges, and future trends

Abstract Cold chains are temperature-controlled supply chains and have a high priority from the managerial point of view. The pharmaceutical cold chain, in particular, is a complex and sensitive chain that needs to be managed effectively based on its direct effects on public health and peoples’ life. Blockchain technology as an emerging distributed solution has been attracting proliferating studies over recent years. The main objective of this paper is to address how blockchain would meet the requirements of a pharmaceutical cold chain such as pharmaceutical digital identity, serialization and traceability, data integrity, transparency, and waste management. Besides, we reviewed the current limitations of the blockchain-enabled pharmaceutical chain to provide deep insights into the existing research challenges and clarify future study directions. Moreover, different case studies of blockchain-based pharmaceutical and medicine projects that deal with these challenges for diverse purposes are discussed. This study represents the various solutions by which blockchain technology would help attain the pharmaceutical cold chain objectives.