Leveraging Blockchain with Optimal Deep Learning-Based Drug Supply Chain Management for Pharmaceutical Industries

Due to its complexity and involvement of numerous stakeholders,the pharmaceutical supply chain presents many challenges that companies must overcome to deliver necessary medications to patients efficiently.The pharmaceutical supply chain poses different challenging issues,encompasses supply chain visibility,cold-chain shipping,drug counterfeiting,and rising prescription drug prices,which can considerably surge out-of-pocket patient costs.Blockchain(BC)offers the technical base for such a scheme,as it could track legitimate drugs and avoid fake circulation.The designers presented the procedure of BC with fabric for creating a secured drug supplychain management(DSCM)method.With this motivation,the study presents a new blockchain with optimal deep learning-enabled DSCM and recommendation scheme(BCODL-DSCMRS)for Pharmaceutical Industries.Firstly,Hyperledger fabric is used for DSC management,enabling effective tracking processes in the smart pharmaceutical industry.In addition,a hybrid deep belief network(HDBN)model is used to suggest the best or top-rated medicines to healthcare providers and consumers.The spotted hyena optimizer(SHO)algorithm is used to optimize the performance of the HDBN model.The design of the HSO algorithm for tuning the HDBN model demonstrates the novelty of the work.The presented model is tested on the UCI repository’s open-access drug reviews database.

A Survey of Drug Supply Organizations in Rural Areas in four Provinces of China

Aim To realize the present situation of drug purchase, supply, and use in the health service organizations and drug distributors in rural areas, and to put forward some suggestions. Methods An interview survey was conducted in 20 township hospitals, 26 countryside drugstores, and 84 village dispensaries in Hainan, Anhui, Henan, and Sichuan Provinces. Results （1） The main drug supplying organizations in the countryside are township hospitals and village dispensaries. （2） The personnel in the drug supplying organizations are rather inadequately educated. （3） The drug resources in the grass-roots countryside are complex and disordered. （4） Most of the countryside retail drugstores are small, and the number of drugstores is small, but their development potential is great. Conclusion （1） A basic drug catalogue for rural areas should be made up. （2） Legitimate drug wholesale companies should be encouraged to supply drugs for vast countryside. （3） Development of drug distributionstations in townships should be promoted. （4） The administration of drugs in the countryside should be strengthened.

Bibliometric Analysis of Drug Supply Chain in China

Objective To study the development trend and hotspot of China’s drug supply chain in terms of bibliometrics to provide some reference for transforming and upgrading China’s pharmaceutical circulation industry.Methods Based on the data related to drug supply chain research from 1999 to 2019 collected by CNKI,Wanfang and VIP,software such as bibliographic information co-occurrence mining system(BICOMS)version 2.0,University of California Irvine Network(UCINET)version 6.0,and graphical clustering toolkit were used to measure and conduct visual analysis of the domestic drug supply chain research literature.Results and Conclusion Through literature analysis,it can be seen that the current research on drug supply chain in China mainly focuses on drug procurement and cost control,zero inventory control of hospital pharmacy,optimization and risk management of drug supply chain,and information of supply chain and logistics of pharmaceutical enterprises.Combining with the“Internet+”and other models,drug supply chain enterprise should optimize its management process according to the relevant national policy,promote information construction in all links of the supply chain,improve its transparency and ensure the quality and safety of drugs.The improvement of supply chain efficiency will enhance the transformation and upgrading of China’s pharmaceutical circulation industry.

Research on the Price Level of Drugs in Short Supply in China

Objective To determine the price level of drugs in short supply and conduct affordability evaluations,thus putting forward countermeasures and suggestions for the management of prices of these drugs.Methods Taking the national list of drugs in short supply and the national key monitoring list of clinically essential drugs in short supply as the research objects,the bid-winning prices were searched through various bidding websites across the country,and the price levels of the varieties in the list were evaluated through fixed base price index,median price ratio and other indicators.The per capita income evaluation method was used to evaluate the affordability of the drugs on the list.Results and Conclusion Among the 30 varieties with valid international reference prices,25 are higher than the international reference prices.The prices of 14 kinds of drugs are 1-5 times higher than the international reference prices.The prices of 10 kinds of drugs are 6-35 times higher than the international reference prices.In rural and urban areas,50%and 73%of the drugs in short supply cost more than two times of the daily income for each course of treatment.The current price levels of selected drugs in short supply are generally high.It is recommended that these drugs should be classified and managed.Besides,the shortage of drugs should be included in the centralized procurement organized by the state to solve the unstable supply in the market.

Reference of New Zealand’s Drug Shortage Management Measures

Objective To provide a scientific reference for China’s drug shortage and supply mechanism by conducting a specific study on New Zealand’s management measures for dealing with the shortage of drugs.Methods Through reviewing the official website of the New Zealand Pharmaceutical Management Agency(PHARMAC)and relevant literature,the specific measures to deal with drug supply and shortage in New Zealand were sorted out,and then some countermeasures were put forward for our domestic drug supply.Results and Conclusion PHARMAC worked closely with the pharmaceutical suppliers and signed contracts to maintain their relationship.A sound drug supply mechanism has been established to respond to various supply issues.At present,there are some problems in drug supply in China,such as the lack of timely publicity of shortage information,the lack of management team for supply,and the lack of alternative drug supply mechanism.China should learn from the PHARMAC to establish a supply contract management team to promote the transparency of drug shortage information and seek alternative drug supply actively.

The effects of medical insurance and patients’ preference on manufacturer encroachment in a pharmaceutical supply chain

With the development of e-commerce,manufacturers have opportunities to sell products to consumers through direct channels in addition to independent retailers.Although manufacturers’encroachment upon the retailing market of traditional goods has been extensively studied,there is a lack of research on manufacturers’encroachment in a pharmaceutical supply chain.This paper analyzes a pharmaceutical manufacturer encroachment strategy by taking into account the distinctive features of drugs,in which drug expenses are covered by medical insurance only in the physical channel and patients'channel preference is also considered.We find that under certain circumstances,the manufacturer encroachment may lead to a win-win outcome for both the manufacturer and the retailer,contradicting the conventional wisdom that the manufacturer's encroachment into retail space is detrimental to the independent retailer.Additionally,the manufacturer is more likely to encroach when the incurred extra cost is sufficiently small,the perceived quality of the drug selling through the direct channel is sufficiently high and the out-of-pocket percentage cost of the drug selling in the physical channel is high.We further study the impact of manufacturer encroachment on social welfare and find that the introduction of encroachment decreases the social welfare when patients'perceived quality of the drug obtained through the online store is low and improves the social welfare when the perceived quality exceeds a certain threshold.