One of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world is working with VeChain to develop a new blockchain-based traceability platform.
Bayer China revealed in an interview Thursday it had chosen VeChain as tech provider for a new blockchain-powered solution that will allow the firm – a branch of Bayer – to track clinical drugs across the supply chain.
Known as "CSecure," the system loads a batch number relating to a specific drug onto the blockchain. Each drug can then be tracked as it moves across the supply chain, using timestamps and user-identification information at different waypoints. Because of the immutable nature of the blockchain, the data can't be changed by a non-permissioned third party.
VeChain won the right to work with Bayer China in a competition back in 2019, after it proposed the company consider implementing a blockchain-based supply chain solution. The proposal subsequently went on to become CSecure.
The system is based on ToolChain, a proprietary blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) system that allows VeChain to design and build full distributed ledger technology solutions to a client's specific requirements.
Bayer China is the latest in a series of high-profile partnerships for the blockchain project. Last June, the Chinese arm of supermarket chain Walmart, as well as Big Four accountancy firm PwC teamed up with VeChain to work on a new food tracking solution for China.
However, VeChain isn't saying much about the latest deal. A spokesperson told CoinDesk that the firm is bound by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and can't divulge further information about how CSecure would actually work "under the hood."
A statement from CEO and co-founder Sunny Lu did say he was grateful Bayer put VeChain through its paces in testing CSecure's product design.
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“We’ve experienced the rigorousness of the medical industry by working with Bayer China," he said. "I feel Bayer’s professionalism and superb work ethic towards medicine and healthcare causes as a whole."
Last year, Uganda’s president backed a similar tracking project from MediConnect that was to use blockchain tech to fight the issue of counterfeit medicines.