New Delhi-based information technology company Tech Mahindra Ltd. today announced a partnership with distributed ledger blockchain startup StaTwig to develop VaccineLedger, a product that will provide supply chain traceability for vaccines globally.

By bringing together all of the different parts of vaccine supply chains – researchers, governments, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, distributors and healthcare workers – the two companies expect to use blockchain technology for enhanced insights and traceability across its global network.

“Wastage of life-saving drugs such as vaccines should be addressed on priority and we need to come together in order to effectively find a solution here,” said Rajesh Dhuddu, Tech Mahindra’s blockchain and cybersecurity practice leader for the Asian, European and African regions. “Our strategic partnership with StaTwig will enable supply chain participants with a single application to enhance traceability, and chain of custody.”

The open-source solution will provide deep traceability from producer to patient and will be designed to allow the detection of counterfeit drugs as well as predict and prevent shortages in supply lines as well as problems related to expired vaccines.

VaccineLedger was designed to become a bridge with end-to-end traceability but not necessarily to replace existing supply chain solutions. As a result, it can work in tandem with traditional supply chains, easily integrate with them and deploy more readily. Tech Mahindra hopes that it can reduce barriers to adoption and get favorable results more quickly.

Vaccines in particular have a delicate lifecycle because they must be kept in carefully controlled conditions and they can go bad quickly. Having high visibility into supply chains from producer to patient would provide rapid insights into where vaccines are needed before doses could pile up and go unused – and therefore potentially go to waste.

“With VaccineLedger, we are aiming to re-design and re-engineer the traditional supply chain information systems to give continuous visibility and complete traceability,” said Sid Chakravarthy, founder and chief executive of StaTwig.

This is not the first time Tech Mahindra has explored blockchain technology. In September, the company partnered with Adjoint Inc. to build an enterprise-ready blockchain solution for insurance management.

Blockchain technology and supply chains go hand-in-hand and have seen many solutions for tracking and end-to-end traceability. One large-scale example includes the IBM Food Trust commercial blockchain network, which has been deployed to protect food from farm to table including olive oil and lettuce. That helps prevent food wastage.

Most blockchain technology solutions directed at vaccines worldwide have been used for COVID-19 test results and proof of vaccination. For example, rollouts of vaccine passports have been built for governments in South Korea, Singapore and, with the help of IBM Corp.’s blockchain technology, in New York.

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