Adents and Microsoft: End-To-End Traceability

In collaboration with Microsoft, serialization and track & trace solutions provider Adents has developed NovaTrack, a unit-level product track & trace platform utilizing blockchain and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies. The systems offers end-to-end traceability and visibility throughout the supply chain.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an estimated 10% of pharmaceutical products sold worldwide and 2.5% of global imports are counterfeit. Trust and transparency continue to be significant concerns for businesses, government agencies and consumers around the globe. Tighter control of supply chains is a crucial factor in tackling these issues.

Comprehensive end-to-end security means more than documenting transactions on a shared ledger using blockchain. Challenges include:

• In-depth understanding of cross-standard serialization protocols

• Ability to define data governance and security policies based on industry standards and business processes as stakeholders are reluctant to share business information and compliance issues impact their governance

• Enormous data volume (hundreds of billions of products circulating worldwide annually) requires powerful AI and BI (business intelligence) technologies

• Syncing complex business processes to understand the supply chain, and adapting IT solutions to meet existing and future stakeholder requirements

NovaTrack utilizes blockchain, AI, internet of things and serialization functionalities that, when combined, bring visibility throughout product distribution chains & life cycles for performance and security but also governance and scalability. NovaTrack’s foundation includes:

• A “blockchain as a service” approach allowing each supply chain participant to either run blockchain nodes on premises or via the Cloud. In the vast majority of cases, a cloud-first blockchain strategy is preferable, as it simplifies technology life cycle management, security, scalability and resource allocations.

• Embedded security features – including consortium Blockchain mechanisms such as identity management, PKI and encryption – ensuring only trusted participants are members of the Blockchain.

• AI via Microsoft Machine Learning and Business Intelligence Services gives the ability to collect and analyze data to transform massive amount of data into actionable business insight.

• Communication standards compliance for various industries, including pharma and other particularly stringent sectors.

Microsoft Blockchain framework utilizes the Azure Intelligent Cloud platform to provide real-time performance, high scalability, granular business-driven data privacy and security, and energy-efficient consensus. The platform is secure by design.