On Friday, the MediLedger Project -- a working group whose members include two dozen of the largest companies involved in healthcare -- submitted its final report to the Food and Drug Administration for a pilot project that will use blockchain to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain.
The collaborative effort is a who's who of the healthcare industry, with participation from AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC), Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), Eli Lily (NYSE: LLY), Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), McKesson (NYSE: MCK), Novartis (NYSE: NVS), Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Roche (OTC: RHHBY), Sanofi (NASDAQ: SNY), Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA), and Walmart (NYSE: WMT).
The blockchain technology the project uses was created by a private company, Chronicled, in 2017. Chronicled is tiny -- its last funding raise was for $16 million -- but it has huge ambitions. The MediLedger Project might one day secure the distribution chain for the entire $1 trillion pharmaceutical industry.