GMedChain

The shortage of medical supplies, and fraudulent medication, in healthcare supply chain systems cause millions of preventable death every year. 

Our mission is to provide affordable and quality healthcare products to hospitals and communities at the right time in the proper condition at the right costs by improving the transparency and efficiency of the healthcare supply chain system with Blockchain technology.

GMedChain is a supply chain solution that provides a global marketplace for hospitals and public entities to safely and transparently procure life-saving medical supplies, track the shipment with real-time visibility, and respond quickly and intelligently to market disruptions with predictive AI. 

With a transparent, safe, and immutable procurement process and supply chain system, hospitals and governments can save time and money as well as prevent corruption, pricing gouging, and fraud. More lives will be saved, and a more affordable and efficient healthcare system will increase everybody's quality of life.

Essential medical supply shortages, fraudulent medicine, pilferage, corruption, and poorly performing healthcare supply chains cause millions of preventable death every year.

Today, with more than 4 million COVID-19 cases worldwide, hospitals around the world are struggling to obtain safe and reliable supplies. The global medical multi-faceted supply chain is largely hidden from public scrutiny to protect commercial interests. But without transparency, shortages of drugs are often poorly understood, with problems at any stage leading to a patient not being able to receive potentially life-saving treatment.

According to the WHO, it is estimated that up to $200 billion worth of counterfeit pharmaceutical products is sold globally every year. More than 120,000 people die in Africa as a result of fake anti-malarial drugs alone.

According to Transparency International (TI), corruption in the healthcare sector causes losses of over US$500 billion every year, more than it would cost to bring about worldwide universal health coverage. Changes are needed to ensure a reliable supply of affordable, high-quality drugs to patients. 
It is an urgent call for greater transparency, better alerts for shortages, and improved traceability for drug safety. 

GMedChain provides a transparent platform that connects healthcare providers with a network of trusted suppliers directly with real-time tracking to deliver the right product, to the right place, at the right time.

• GMedChain platform deploys Blockchain in the healthcare supply chain, which tracks provenance, traceability, and historical procurement for supplies as they move downstream to hospitals with blockchain finality to facilitate safe and transparent procurement processes and resource allocation. Hospitals and communities can source medical products from producers directly without any intermediaries. 
• Blockchain as the ledger and IoT devices as data providers provide secure & real-time data exchange and a tamper-proof repository for documents & logistics. It enables greater visibility of activities and reveals where the shipment is at any point in time, who owns it, and what condition it is in.
• GMedChain integrates with the organization’s existing Inventory management system to digitalize the entire chain management and automate operations and processes. 
• From cloud-based management systems to smart sensors, the real-time supply chain provides a constant stream of real-time data. This has enabled greater visibility, agility, and in-the-moment decision-making via predictive AI applications to better plan demands and mitigate risks.

Healthcare providers and their patients around the world. Especially in developing countries where no efficient system is in place, and the combination of infrastructure issues and corruptions could create supply chain dysfunction.

All stakeholders using the platform can (1) connect with partners directly, (2) access supplies and data, (3) buy, sell, and track supplies at their disposal, and (4) be held accountable for activities and checkpoints.

We will invite public hospitals and government entities and their suppliers to move their procurement processes onto our blockchain platform. 

All suppliers has to follow a rigid verification process to ensure trust and credibility. By removing unnecessary intermediaries in the supply chain, hospitals and government can save money and time and build trust with their patients and communities.  

The bidding and contracting process will happen on an open market that is transparent and verifiable. The records are stored on the blockchain in a tamper free manner for auditing processes. 

Transparent, real-time insights into product movements create a more responsible and collaborative approach to global trade, reducing costs and time, and increasing efficiencies. 

According to a study Mckinsey published in 2017, the costs can be reduced by up to 30% by digitizing the supply chain.

GMedChain is using blockchain to rebuild trust in global trade and reinvent a safe, efficient and transparent supply chain system to support and protect health workers so they have the tools and resources to better help their patients.

Our solution is using data and predictive AI to help healthcare providers proactively project future programmatic and budgetary needs, protect against corruption, make data-driven decisions to mitigate risks, and ultimately help more patients in need. The governments are able to see a clear indication of the status of the network and location of supplies that can be leveraged during times of crisis.

We are:

• 10X Better than the traditional third-party distributors such as Mckesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen: GMedChain is the first medical marketplace that lets hospitals and physicians source affordable medical products from verified suppliers directly. 

• 10X Cheaper & Easier than the key players include IBM, Oracle, SAP, Accenture, Vizient, Cisco: SaaS model with no expensive hardware or special training needed. Unlike the most point to point solutions on the market, GMedChain is a Multi-Sector Solution which is easily integrated into their existing system with the minimal requirement to setup. 

• 10X Safer than shop on Alibaba: using blockchain to govern sourcing decisions and trace history.

• 10X Easier to use than the startups in the same space such as Modum.io, Medileger, and FarmaTrust: GMedChain is designed for non-technical people and focusing on healthcare workers and patients instead of profiting pharmaceutical companies. 

Blockchain can unblock the global medical supply chain, strengthening trust among all parties. It uses a deep encryption system that enables contracts to be regulated in a more decentralized manner and secure enough to allow financial payments to flow through such a mechanism. 

Blockchain can help

1. Product requirements: provide a mechanism for health systems to continually update factories with the latest product requirements and specifications.
2. Supplier credibility: for health systems to credibly assess which factories have high-quality control and meet the specifications and production volumes needed.
3. Financial Payments: act as a trade finance mechanism to ensure upfront blockchain-backed payments to factories that are then released as working capital upon pre-agreed production milestones and as supplies move to the next step of the supply chain.
4. Customs certifications: blockchain-based Customs Certifications have been used to regulate the export of many products in pharmaceuticals.
5. Transportation tracking: supplies need to be securely tracked around the world to ensure transparency in the supply chain, which can occur with blockchain-based provenance tracking.
6. When integrating with IoT, a Smart Contract creates trust and security in the digitized document workflow. It improves the efficiency of global supply chains to save on labor costs and ensure data protection by removing paperwork throughout the ecosystem.
7. When integrating with an AI and Data, the system can provide greater accuracy and better forecasts on medications and medical supplies, reducing waste from expired and damaged goods, preventing stock-outs, supply-side shortages, delivery time variability, and supply-chain disruptions.

Using this example, we will examine how blockchain has been implemented to create trust and security in the digitized document workflow and improve the efficiency of global supply chains.

• Shipping from the port of Mombasa requires signatures from three different agencies approving the export and six documents that describe the origin, chemical treatments, quality of the produce, and customs duties.
• Firstly, using a PC or mobile device, the Kenyan farm submits a packing list that becomes visible to all participants.
• This action initiates a smart contract that enforces an export approval workflow between the three agencies.
• As each agency signs, the status is updated for all to see.
• Simultaneously, information about the inspection of the flowers, the sealing of the refrigerated container, the pickup by the trucker, and the approval from customs is communicated to the port of Mombasa, allowing them to prepare for the container.
• All actions relating to the documents and the physical goods

IoT demo

Input:

• GMedChain deploys Blockchain in the healthcare supply chain which tracks provenance, traceability, and historical procurement for supplies. 

• Blockchain for ledger and IoT devices as data providers provide secure & real-time data exchange and a tamper-proof repository for documents & logistics. 

• The platform integrating with the organization’s existing inventory system digitalizes the entire chain management and automate operations and processes with transparency via prompt reporting.

Output:

• Public Hospitals and governments can source medical products on the open market platform from a global network of trusted suppliers directly without intermediaries, where transactions are transparent and immutable.

• Smart Logistic using IoT to track and monitor shipment location, storage condition and ownership in real-time, is hack-resistant with full visibility. 

• Streamlined operations and purchase process automation free up healthcare professional valuable time for more impactful activities.

• Predictive planning tools enable greater visibility, agility, and real-time decision-making via AI and machine learning applications.

Outcomes: 

For patients: 

• Easier timely access to safe and affordable quality products.

For hospitals:

• More transparent supply chain prevents corruption, pricing gouging and fraud. Real-time tracking and tracing capabilities prevents counterfeit drugs and improve patient safety. The FDA’s Drug Supply Chain Security Act was implemented in 2015 and sets drug and pharmaceutical product tracing, verification and identification requirements and implementation benchmarks that will roll out through 2023. 

• Ability to track and manage resources at ecosystem levels provide greater accuracy and better forecasts on supplies, reducing waste from expired and damaged goods. 

• Visibility of the whole ecosystem is useful in understanding which products led to successful patient outcomes, projecting future programmatic and budgetary needs, protecting against corruption, and ultimately allowing for an increase in patients served. 

Government officials 

• End to end visibility and resources allocation can be leveraged during times of crisis.

• Transparent & immutable procurement processes prevent corruption and improve public health. With annual global health expenditures now exceeding US$7.5 trillion, over 7% and far over US$500 billion in health resources are lost to corruption every year. Eliminating corruption in healthcare could free up enough resources to pay for universal health coverage worldwide. (Sources: Jones et al. 2011, WHO 2018b)

We are still developing our MVP and have not launched our product yet. 

The number we’ll be serving in one year: 120,000 is the number of people that die a year due to fake antimalarial drugs alone and we want to serve at least half of that population plus the COVID-19 vaccines that will be distributed in the coming year. 

The number we’ll be serving in five years: 1 billion people in North and South America + 4.46 billions in Asia. 

GMedChain will serve the needs around and beyond the current COVID-19 crisis, and vaccines and medical goods supply chains. 

Globally, we have supply and quality issues with our current supply chain, and this already overwhelmed system will be affected with the proliferation of fraudulent medicine as billions of vaccines are distributed to the public within the coming years.

We will 

• Increase partnerships and revenue customers from all stakeholder classes 

• Seek seed funding through a joint venture model

• Grow its marketing and communications capacity and tools to convincingly share its approach and data

• Refine UI and develop prototypes adapted for use among different types of semi-skilled health workers

• Introduce an effective referral system across stakeholders within primary healthcare

• Expand user base through distribution with health organizations

• Form partnerships with relevant stakeholders, such as local governments and NGOs.

Financial: 

We need startup capital on:

• Hardware

• Software

• Development costs 

• Operational costs - including hiring and training human resources, and adjusting standard operating procedures.

• Long-term support - Maintenance, upgrades, planned obsolescence.

Resistance: 

Our solution provides crucial transparency across all parties in healthcare. There will be resistance from private sectors to corrupt government offices where distributors control access to information on medical supplies - an information asymmetry they use as an advantage for profits. 

Data sharing: Organizations and countries don't share user data due to privacy and security issues, and there is no standardized data in the healthcare sector, making it hard to structure large amounts of data to analyze in a meaningful way.  

A good-enough solution in normal times: Many hospitals will go back to the old ways after the pandemic.  

To overcome these barriers, we plan to

• Connect with mentor and advise product development and strategic planning

• Build connections to investors and grantors to progress their fundraising strategy

• seek partnerships with NGOs and foundations, nonprofits, government, and academia.

Full-time: The founder 

Part-time: 5

I have over 15 years’ management experience working for multinational companies in diverse industries and have hands-on knowledge of the global supply chain. We have IT healthcare professionals with ten years experience, and talented developers and data experts with tracking records building award winning products. Together, we represent 8 countries and 3 continues, we are passionate about using emerging technologies to solve healthcare problems. We believe we have the right knowledge, network, and people to make it work. 

Founder

Miriam Dong - Business & Finance - Canada / China

MBA in Finance, second-time founder, senior director of multinational companies; 15 years experience in management consulting; Board member of Canadian Pharmaceuticals Ltd. 

Team

Alejandro Ballesta - AI & Data Expert - Peru

Computer Engineer & Master in Fintech, two times co-founder: Gamekip gamification PM platform and Fintech company Fintuu, Analytics Developer & Advanced Analytics expert

Yan He - Sr Blockchain Engineer/Expert - Canada

Senior software developer in enterprise application systems. Designed the first Canadian occupational web services platform used by over 50 national-wide applications.

Husein Attarwala, MS, PMP.  - Project Manager - USA

Team lead at outpatient services,  San Francisco Dept. of Public Health with 9 yrs Healthcare IT experience, business strategy, client relations.

Derek Bryson - Branding & UX/UI Specialist - Peru

Communicator with audiovisual and Multimedia Communication background. UI designer and co-founder of Sukha Digital Agency.

Muntaser Syed - Hardware Engineer - USA

Ph.D. in Computer engineering, with research interests in AI, IOT/wireless sensors, robotics, and security.

GMedChain is an easy-to-use platform that offers safe, affordable, quality products that hospitals need to treat patients on a transparent marketplace directly from verified suppliers. It can govern sourcing decisions, trace history, monitor cold chain shipments in real-time, and deliver worldwide. 

Our key customers are publicly-funded healthcare service providers and government entities such as community hospitals, university medical centers, and long term care facilities

• Free for buyers to procure products and manage resources on the marketplace and track shipment location, condition, and ownership on the dashboard in real-time with smart devices. 
• Software tools, including Inventory management and advanced analytics, are the SaaS subscription model that integrates with the organization’s existing system to digitalize the entire chain management and automate operations and processes. Powered by AI and data, it helps healthcare providers better understand drug effectiveness, project future programmatic and budgetary needs, make data-driven decisions to mitigate risks, and ultimately help more patients in need. 
• Customized enterprise solutions are offered to large entities & governments. 

SaaS subscription model for sellers such as pharmaceutical companies, medical product manufacturers, and drug suppliers, with three payment options to help reach credible buyers globally. Our analytics tools & customer insights help businesses manage growth and operate more efficiently, including:

• Production accuracy, demand forecasting, and planning
• Warehouse management 
• Recall management 
• CRM
• Reviews system to recognize and reward quality manufacturing, and strengthened credibility and trust to boost sales volume.
• IoT hardware to track shipping processes

Key expenses are employees, product development, and IoT costs of goods sold.

We will bring in money by a combination of selling products and services, raising investment capital,and grants. 

We use a Market linkage business model that facilitates trade relationships between clients and the external market.

Freemium model for buyers (Hospitals & Physicians): free to use GMedChain to shop Healthcare, Industrial, and Scientific supplies and equipment directly from a network of Verified Suppliers without any intermediaries; subscription model for supply chain management tools with the integration of inventory management and analytic reports and predictive planning tools.

SaaS model for sellers (suppliers & manufacturers): three simple payment plans to help sellers to reach credible buyers globally.

Customized enterprise solution for large entities & governments. 

More importantly than the prize funding, we want to join the Solver community and network. We believe MIT-backed network and contacts could open new doors for us to build the partnerships needed to accelerate our work, validate our impact and business model, and scale our solution. 

We are looking forward to become a solver and join the Solver community in the months to come of personalized support from Solve staff and members of Solve’s cross-sector community. 

To reach these goals, we seek partnerships to connect with leaders from corporations, foundations, nonprofits, government, and academia. 

• Support marketing and communications that clearly distribute data
• Connect to investors, product champions, and global partners in healthcare communities and supply chain areas
• Build international visibility through the addition of one to two board members
• Collaborate with technical advisors to advise on the business model

We want to partner with 

• MIT Supply chain faculty and healthcare initiatives as well as institutions such as research institutes and individuals experts. 
• Independent Transportation Network to deliver to rural areas. 
• WHO to improve access to the better public health system in communities. 
• GAVI Alliance a global Vaccine Alliance to bring vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries.
• Transparency International to fight against corruption in the healthcare sector. 
• The Global Health Partnership H6 to distribute medical products to high-burden countries to improve the survival, health, and well-being of women and children.
• Co-host Pop-up Clinics to help the uninsured population
• World Economic Forum for crisis management in preparing for Globalization 4.0

Current situations show it is vital to have a prevention chain where all countries provide data on numbers of hospital beds, equipment, personnel, etc. and collaborate with those regions most affected.

GMedChain can be used as an epidemic prevention chain with a real-time decentralized database that tracks product volumes and pricing bids from manufacturers to deliveries. Like stock markets, the organizations have access to real-time events of global stockpiles and deployments that limits markup control from private manufacturers. 

It is a comprehensive integration of procurement, logistics tracking system, donation tracing system, and materials usage tracking system.
The openness and transparency of the entire process will help IoT technology combine information about types, quantities, distribution requirements, assigned objects, distribution results of materials, and displacement of materials collected. IoT information such as time and status is opened to distributors, assignees, government agencies, logistics companies, and other entities to achieve data sharing and comparison to ensure that all information is transparent, timely, and accurate. 
Legal digital identity certificates are issued to the medical supplies' demand units and supply units, thus published demand and supply information is real and valid.

Medical material demand units will chain demand by category, number, quality, and other dimensions with corresponding information supplied by supply units for intelligence matching, point-to-point distribution, full-link traceability, and auditing. Only certified entities can use GMedChain to publish demand, supply information, prevent illegal and untrue claims and supply information, and ensure accuracy; thus, understanding of demand is more accurate, and resource allocation is faster.

From the beginning of time, the global healthcare system has reactively responded to the different diseases and epidemics that affect us all. This produces shortages and three different dimensions: medical supplies such as PPE and remedies, infrastructure, and health professionals. With today's technology, we can greatly improve this. 

AI & machine learning automates and connects the entire chain management to replace slow and manual processes and reduce costs and save time. One estimate from McKinsey predicts big data could save medicine and pharma up to $100B annually. 

Approximately 63% of hospitals still rely on email and phone to notify and collaborate with vendors causing massive deficiencies and shortages when demand surges for supplies. 

This situation can also be seen in the casualty loop graphically displayed above and produces several fragilities such as weak supply risk management, lack of digital integration across the supply chain, reactive systems incapable of anticipating breaks, shortages and changes, future demands that are estimated from the past, budget constraints, past errors that are fed back into the forecast, and waste of resources due to expiration. GMedChain AI solution will collect data on end-user usages, environment, seasonality, economic activity, and more in order to identify factors driving demand before they become medical cases.

With the capability to predict demand with greater anticipation, hospitals will be able to respond in a timely manner and stay in the positive avoiding the herd behavior that exhausts resources when these events occur. 

Two main benefits are visibility and digitalization, which is in line with the fourth Industrial Revolution. By filtering and reducing noise in the system, healthcare professionals can better predict risks within the actionable window, and to detect and identify correlations between events. Also, by providing system-wide causal inference, it detects and correlates a high volume of alerts making them consumable by the end-user.

The system will generate predictions that measure the value of risk and inform end-users about the relative priorities for the important events that they must focus on. Additionally, it will be able to provide better patient care, protective workforce, and risk management. Streamlined operations and process automation digitalizing the entire chain management will allow the medical supply chain to save money, reduce waste, and increase efficiency and speed. 

The application inputs data from the ERP and planning systems such as SAP, APO, IBP, and other diverse internal-external signals such as usage data, product data, weather, and social data. The machine learning model is programmed to learn different indicators to recognize the abnormal patterns and conflict KPI signals which trigger alerts. The system can create predictive insights and prescriptive recommendations by constantly recommending actual responses and closing the feedback loop. 

We will be able to better forecast the peaks and needs based on seasonality, weather, and massive events. The interaction of supply chain professionals together with the support from AI systems will be able to better estimate intervals of purchase orders and the type of items predictably rather than reactively or unoptimized.

On the benchmarking side, professionals will be able to allow comparison between benchmarks of different districts or zones and avoid potential bottlenecks and resources. 

We will also be able to allow connectivity and remote monitoring, increasing efficiency with employees, thus eliminating manual processing and several physical labor activities, as well as management of analytics on materials spent to optimize and correct actions. 

Public procurement in healthcare suffers from high levels of corruption due to the lack of transparency and accountability mechanisms in the medical supply chain system. 

It disproportionately impacts the vulnerable, including adverse health outcomes for women and children. Corruption exacerbates these power dynamics, limiting women’s access to public resources, information, and decision-making. For example, women’s reliance on health services plagued by corruption makes them vulnerable to abuse, blocking access to vital contraceptive, reproductive, and child health services. Tragically, for many, this houses them into poverty and sometimes death. 

We are aiming to fight against gender inequality by reducing corruption and promoting transparency, integrity, and accountability within the pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chain sectors.

We will invite public hospitals and government entities and their suppliers to move their procurement processes onto our blockchain platform. All suppliers have to follow a rigid verification process to ensure trust and credibility. By removing unnecessary intermediaries in the supply chain, hospitals and the governments can save money and time and build trust with their patients and communities. 

The bidding and contracting process will happen on an open market that is transparent and verifiable. Once governments publish a request, businesses must be able to compete for contracts and make sense of the market. The aim of open contracting is to improve procurement outcomes by widening participation. The records are stored on the blockchain in a tamper-free manner for auditing processes. 

We will also partner with communities and organizations to educate and empower women and children on information, leadership, and host pop up clinics in rural areas. 

In times of crisis, we understand medical equipment is a public resource, akin to the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the levels of freedom we should enjoy as a human right. To that end, visibility into lost supplies, fraudulent medicine, and supply chain confusion must be pervasive throughout the medical supply chain in order to better serve the public.

In developed countries, a complex medical infrastructure, while not perfect, props up medical providers that can be identified and trusted by consumers. In 3rd world countries, this is not the case - there is no clear way for consumers to identify whether vaccines and the providers they receive them from are worthy of being trusted.

GMedChain is using emerging technologies to ensure healthy living and promote well-being at all ages.

We address two core challenges - reliably creating a digital identity for a physical commodity at its source in the field and connecting the inputs and outputs from a manufacturing process to enable that identity to be inherited. Through the material journey, we use data tools to identify anomalies or fraudulent activity. 

Complex business logic is coded and supported by machine learning algorithms to verify the chain of custody and other information necessary to demonstrate responsible sourcing, verify the chain of custody, or underpin sustainability goals.   

As material evolves through the supply chain, the circulatory system collects and verifies that the material flow follows the rules defined by our customers. This might be elapsed time, mass balance calculations, QA, and responsible sourcing standards or energy use. 

The transparent decentralized system also prevents corruption and price gouging, reducing waste and inefficiencies, promotes fairness, and strengthens health systems.

One of the bigger research areas for blockchain at the moment is integration across multiple blockchains which will be key creating universal blockchain solutions. We are going to partner with other blockchain solutions and leverage their network and capabilities to make our business case more viable. 

In addition to our core business of a B2B marketplace delivering essential medical products, we also plan to sell and license our technology products such as our blockchain-based cold chain monitoring system with IoT. The key customers in that space are pharmaceutical companies required to meet the Drug Supply Chain Security Act requirements for a track and trace system for US drugs by 2023. We also plan to offer consulting services to government health ministries that need assistance digitizing open procurement processes records. 

GMedChain is going to start with PPE and Vaccines, and scale into other markets such as organ donor and active pharmaceutical ingredient, the biologically active part of the drug. The FDA estimates more than a quarter of all facilities making the active ingredients for American drugs are based in India and China. We are positioned for long-term sustainability in the +$1 billion healthcare blockchain supply chain market.