In this exciting episode we had the great pleasure of interviewing Dan Fritz and Marco Cuomo to hear about the exciting blockchain work they are doing at the pharmaceutical giant, Novartis. In this podcast you will hear about the wealth of experience they have developed by building POCs using Hyperledger, Ethereum and Corda.

Dan Fritz role is domain architect for supply chain. His department look at technologies that support supply chain business capabilities. They also look at emerging technologies and how they could be used to leverage and address the business needs.

Marco Cuomo is the Applied Technology Innovation Manager and his team is responsible for bringing in new technology into Novartis. He has been looking at blockchain for the last 2 -  3 years and in addition to supply chain has been looking at good use cases for using the technology.

Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company with about 100,000 employees in over 100 countries. It has a portfolio of prescription medicines, a generic division, and is increasingly focused on biotech including cellular and gene therapies.

 
What is blockchain?
Marco Cuomo recognises that defining “what is blockchain?” is a difficult question to answer. In Novartis they have developed a “blockchain elevator pitch” to describe what is blockchain internally to their business and to their internal customers. Blockchain is a shared means centrally controlled, distributed ledger. Every partner in that blockchain network has a copy of that ledger and it enables immutable recording of transactions. These transactions track assets without the need for intermediaries.

Dan adds that blockchain is a socio technical construct which is designed to be a win-win for all participants engaged within it. This requires a different mindset where all participants are growing the pie together instead of just slicing it up.

 
Beginning of Novartis journey into blockchain in 2016
The immutability aspect of blockchain is what attracted Dan and Marco to blockchain. Immutability is a key attribute that is desired in the pharmaceutical industry. This is an industry that is highly regulated, it operates under GxP, or good manufacturing, good distribution, good clinical practices, where the traceability of all of the processes and the accountability of all of the processes have to be proven and documented. A shared immutable distributed ledger seemed like the perfect tool in comparison to creating binders of paper that go into an archive for 10 years.

From a supply chain perspective, it was the promise that blockchain could provide more efficient transactions, reducing the friction between data silos and organisational silos through a shared ledger.

Additionally blockchain could provide the patient control of their own data instead of it sitting with a range of intermediaries. There is the opportunity for creating patient data marketplaces.

 
The LEGO Mindstorm Truck

In 2016, Marco purchased a set of LEGO Mindstorm Truck to create a supply chain scenario where a serialised product is delivered from a packaging line onto a truck which transports it across the supply chain from a pharmaceutical manufacturer, to a distributor, to a pharmacy and ultimately to the patient.

At every step of the way the serial number is tracked against the serial number of the previo...