Mrs Brown makes a stop at the local pharmacy to pick up some Aspirin. Her young son Timothy has been complaining of severe headaches. She gets home and gives him a tablet to swallow.
"Drink the water and go to bed she says"
Timothy does as he's told. He goes to bed. He never woke up.
Autopsy revealed he died from arsenic and benzopyrene poisoning. These were ingredients in the "aspirin" he took the night before.

Young Timothy is the latest statistic in a very long war against counterfeit drugs.
You see, when you wear a fake pair of Nike shoes or don a counterfeit GAP hoodie, there's no harm done (well except to the pockets of the designers), but when you swallow a capsule containing boric acid and sibutramine instead of an Advil, you are now flirting with disaster. Millions of lives are at risk from counterfeit drugs and health products that have been designed to look like the original.

Internet pharmacies and online stores(clearnet and dark web) are often the source of counterfeit drugs.
The high cost of medical insurance and drug shortage also facilitate access for counterfeits. Trafficking counterfeit drugs is also a very lucrative business. In November 8, 2011, during a major counterfeit medicine raid, Chinese authorities arrested 114 people with 65 million bottles of medicine, estimated at $30 million.

These counterfeit drugs apart from being health hazards to the general public, also waste consumer income and discourage interest in research and further development as the manufacturers bemoan their losses from intellectual property being stolen and abused. They also result in a loss in tax revenue for the government.

Governments and pharmaceuticals have made great strides in the anti-counterfeiting fight. These include the use of Scratch and Text packs, RFID tags and Near-infrared Spectrometers.

But these are still not enough to deter determined profit-seeking criminals.

In India, up to 20 percent of all drugs sold are suspected to be counterfeit,
and according to a report by International Policy Network, up to 700,000 people die annually from counterfeit tuberculosis and malaria medications. Around the world, 3.3 billion people are at risk from malaria which is considered an epidemic in 106 countries. Think of the damage that counterfeit malariadrugs could do. Source
What's worse? W.H.O estimates a frightening "10 % of medical products circulating in low and middle income countries is either substandard or fake". Source

But wait, a shining light...

FarmaTrust

What is FarmaTrust?

FarmaTrust is a global tracking system that aims to provide a "fast, scalable, cheap and immutable solution" to pharmaceutical supply chains.
It's objective is to ensure that counterfeit drugs do not enter the supply chain.
FarmaTrust utilises Artificial Intelligence and big data analysis to provide reliable and trustworthy bridging services between patients and medical practitioners around the world.

Introduction To FarmaTrust

What Benefits Does FarmaTrust Offer?

The two main problems of pharmaceutical supply are fraud and supply chain costs. When the supply chain processes become more expensive, the prices of the drugs also increase to match. FarmaTrust has responded to these problems by identifying the inferior and inefficient supply chain systems being used conventionally, and now proposes to use the blockchain to track drugs from the production facility to the end user - the customer.
This affords consumers the ability to check and confirm the authenticity of their drugs, significantly reducing the risk of being deceived into purchasing counterfeit products.

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Source
FarmaTrust will benefit companies by reducing supply chain costs while still adhering to regulatory bodies' rules by automating the monitoring and reporting process, cutting out the extra expenses incurred when done using conventional methods.

Advantages of FarmaTrust

FarmaTrust is a pioneer in this unique method of anti-counterfeit combat. It replaces cumbersome (and prone to error) logistics with an efficient, cost effective, transparent and ultimately safe method of supplying drugs to the patients.
Using blockchain as a foundation allows FarmaTrust to create commercially viable products for the pharmaceutical industry.
The FarmaTrust platform is a decentralized immutable ledger and has the ability to scale.

Source

The FarmaTrust platform is also very user-friendly and has a front-end demo available here for all interested parties.

Example showing Typical FarmaTrust Blockchain Use Case

FTT & ZOI Tokens

The FarmaTrust platform operates using two tokens, FTT and ZOI tokens.
The FTT tokens are ERC20 standard tokens. These are the publicity tradable digital assets that allow all users to gain access and perform activities on the Zoi platform. They can be traded externally. FTT tokens can also be staked to receive ZOI tokens.
The ZOI tokens are an internal currency to be used and traded only on the FarmaTrust Zoi platform. They are to be used for FarmaTrust services such as creating Compilance Tracking tokens.

The Compliance Tracking tokens are then bound to serialized product keys generated by the product manufacturers to meet Track and Trace requirements. This is all possible using Smart Contracts called Smart Bonds.

Source

The Team

A complex foray like this needs only sturdy hands and sharp minds. The FarmaTrust team is made up of top professionals with decades of experience in many fields including Artificial Intelligence, Law, Business Management and Software Engineering.

Token Sale

FarmaTrust initial token sale ran from February 15, 2018 to March 31st, 2018.

Helpful Links

Helpful Videos

FarmaTrust Prototype Simulation

Lord Anthony FarmaTrust interview

David Cohen speaks on FarmaTrust

#thealliance

This is a submission for the @originalworks contest here

farma2018

FarmaTrust - Saving Lives by Eliminating Counterfeit Drugs