MedDuka X:Decentralised platform to order & procure medicine

Quality and affordable medication for the greater good

MedDuka Ex is a web-based, peer-to-peer procurement platform for hospitals, pharmacies, humanitarian & faith-based organizations to order & purchase quality medicines from drug manufacturers or distributors, having them delivered right to their location. The procurement process is tracked through the Blockchain network right from when the drug is manufactured to when the medicine is delivered, prescribed and dispensed to the patient.

The Industry Scenario & Challenges

Procurement of pharmaceutical drugs plays a crucial role in the quality of life of refugees & host communities living in refugee settlements & remote areas. The current experience is usually drug stock-outs/expiry of drugs due to challenges in international procurement & delays in drug deliveries.

Challenges MedDuka Ex aims to tackle include:                                              

• Proliferation of Counterfeit Drugs
• Bureaucracy leading to excessively complicated administrative procedures in the procurement process leading to delays in drug deliveries.
• High cost of drugs in the local market due to fragmented market of sub-distributors in the pharma marketplace causing high markups in drugs prices as they move from one distributor to another.
• Lack of transparency & poor information sharing in the supply chain leading to corruption & limited accountability.
• Poor quantification of drugs leading to overestimation or underestimation of the drugs needed thus resulting in over ordering or under ordering of drugs.

How MedDuka Ex Solves these Challenges?

MedDuka seeks to phase out procurement bottlenecks by using Blockchain and AI to automate regulatory compliance, payments & financial audits of drug purchases. The platform aims to provide timely delivery of drugs thereby preventing price spikes in medicines by ensuring there is even allocation of medicines across the market.

How it works

For private health facilities & retail pharmacies, orders are placed on the inventory management system and MedDuka prepares inventory & makes delivery from both local & international manufacturing partners. 

For government procurement bodies & faith-based organizations, orders are placed onto the platform & notifications are sent out to potential manufactures & distributors who qualify based on regulatory data about themselves shared on the platform. Manufacturers then proceed to bid to supply essential medicines & medical supplies.

How costs are reduced

With our peer-to-peer inventory management system, procurement costs & delivery time is reduced through:

• Access to real time data of the inventory from batch & serial numbers, date of manufacture, expiry date, dosage & storage conditions through use of sensors & Radio Frequency ID tags.
• Supply chain forecasting & product recommendation leveraged by use of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning.
• Quality control, regulation requirements & payments are enforced & automated through smart contracts eliminating need for various intermediaries. 
• Data stored on the blockchain is immutable & accessed by all parties in the procurement process with further options of interoperability. However, this only applies to data owned & created by a specific party in the network, including the patient. This reduces bureaucracy & corruption that is normally characterised in supply chain systems of developing countries.

MedDuka Ex is a digital-first approach encompassing all aspects of the procurement business, regardless of whether it concerns a digital business or not. It leads to the creation of entirely new markets and businesses.

Through the use of Blockchain, our solution can efficiently automate most of the complex procurement procedures especially with regard to regulatory compliance and obligation management without the need for various intermediaries, through the use of smart contracts. Smart contracts ensure performance of essential checks and contractual compliance by participating vendors and trim tedious auditing processes.

We use Blockchain & implement smart contracts to automate regulatory compliance and contract management of fractions among healthcare organisations and pharmaceutical suppliers. Blockchain is also used as a decentralised and immutable storage of traction and regulatory data of all parties in the procurement process offering efficient transparency & information sharing among stakeholders and financiers. 

We also use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for supply chain forecasting,risk management, price and product recommendation for procurers enabling fast & efficient decision making in the procurement process.

Our goal for the next 12 months is to move from prototype to piloting phase through partnerships with local/international manufacturers, public/private health facilities and procurement departments of faith-based organisations/NGOs. 

We also seek to partner with projects & startups like Viant or Mediledger that are using Blockchain to track & provide security to pharmaceutical products in the supply chain. This will help improve product provenance within our platform making quality control compliance more efficient.  

We plan to be a regional procurement partner for procurement bodies within Africa with 40% procurement of medicines happening within our platform. 

With the size of the pharmaceutical market expected to reach between $45 billion — $65 billion by 2020, efficient procurement of drugs will play a big role on the price & affordability of medicines in Sub Saharan Africa. Our vision is to help healthcare providers procure medicines at the lowest prices possible, by leveraging Blockchain, which will reduce cases of price manipulation by increasing transparency among health providers & their suppliers through a decentralized record of transactions & provenance of medicines.

We plan on using our already existing retail pharmacies using our location-based telemedicine & drug delivery application to start a pilot.

We also seek to make long term partnerships with donors & faith-based organizations who finance most of the medicine procurement in Sub Saharan Africa e.g. Global Fund & PEPFAR by providing accountability & transparency to where money is going in relation to the procurement of medicines. Through access to real time data & higher regulatory compliance in the procurement process, we will reduce loss of funds due to corruption & bureaucracy in procurement of medicines especially in the public sector. 

We hope to be piloting this solution with at least two major procuring bodies in charge of medicines procurement in the region, with at least four initial large orders and 100 small orders from private health clinics and pharmacies in Uganda.

In three years we hope to be making at most $50 million dollars worth of pharmaceutical procurement within our platform catering for over 20 million Africans moving in to private and public health facilities

We are a team of vast talents and skills.We have two software developers with one a data scientist and a Block-chain developer. Our team also has experience in business development and two major advisers who have broad experience in the health sector and humanitarian services.

Our business model is primarily a B2B model based on how the platform is customised to the different stakeholders. 

For manufacturers or suppliers, every successful delivery made on the platform, MedDuka receives a 10% commission for maintenance of the platform. Manufacturers are offered free utility tokens to access their data and reports based on volumes of transactions they have made on the platform

Buyers purchase utility tokens that use to pay monthly/annual subscriptions in order to access forecasting reports, analytics and transaction records.

We are applying to Solve because we believe it gives us the opportunity to meet the right partners who will help us move our solution to the next level in both technical and business development processes.

With technical assistance, we will get to reach out to ConsenSys which has vast experience in building blockchain platforms for different verticals and use-cases especially in the pharma sector. 

We will also get to meet different dignitaries from large health organizations such as Gavi and Global Fund which have experience in the finance and procurement of medicines in Sub Saharan Africa. 

Limited access to potential partners to help pilot our solution especially in the context of procurement of medicines for vulnerable groups like refugees.

Access to finance and additional tech expertise to help us integrate some of the notable Blockchain solutions being in the trace-ability & tracking of pharmaceutical products such as Viant,FarmaTrust and MediLedger