A collaboration between GLEIF and PharmaLedger has enabled the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) to become an essential part of a new healthcare services blockchain platform.
The partnership enables a digital trusted ecosystem, designed to support innovation and benefit all global healthcare players involved – from manufacturers to patients. The digital trust enabled by the verifiable LEI (vLEI) promises to dramatically increase the operational efficiency of the global healthcare industry. It also translates into the digital exchange of data and documentation relating to a wide range of use cases, including patient health, clinical drug trials, and supply chain partnerships.
PharmaLedger, a project sponsored by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), brings together 12 global pharmaceutical companies and 17 public and private entities. PharmaLedger has been a key participant in GLEIF’s cross-industry vLEI development program and will be one of the first service providers in the world to integrate GLEIF’s new organizational identity into its system.
Instant, global digital identity verification
The LEI is comparable to an international corporate identity card; it is an ISO standardized 20-digit code that refers to a high-quality business card and information about the ownership structure of a legal entity. This information can be verified quickly and efficiently by anyone, anywhere, allowing organizations to know precisely who they are doing business with.
The vLEI, the digital counterpart of the LEI, will be used by PharmaLedger to establish real-time digital trust between participants on its blockchain. It will also be tested as part of an industry-wide, multi-country initiative to digitize product information for patients. Here, the vLEI will be used to identify the manufacturer of each pharmaceutical leaflet.
The benefits of digital trust in patient information leaflets
With the PharmaLedger platform, regulators and manufacturers can accelerate the creation, approval, and digital delivery of critical product information to patients. The result is that patients can scan a medicine box with a smartphone to get the latest approved scanned package insert and be sure the document is genuine.
The system will also allow regulators to approve drug package inserts more quickly and efficiently. Innovative applications like this are only possible when all participants adopt the same form of digital identity.
Instant integration and rapid partnership thanks to a digital trust base that allows the exchange of sensitive data
The vLEI will allow healthcare companies to integrate almost instantly with the PharmaLedger blockchain. It will also allow them to quickly initiate partnerships with other ledger companies, while remaining safe in the knowledge that their credentials have been rigorously verified.
Crucially, this model will also allow authorized representatives of participating companies to securely and digitally authorize the exchange of sensitive and siled information with other partners (in accordance with the rules that govern such exchanges), including, for example, patient health data or (as in this first instance) pharmaceutical product information.
Daniel Fritz, PharmaLedger’s Industry Project Manager, explains: “PharmaLedger needs to identify and verify companies and their representatives so that we can be sure that the companies joining the blockchain, as well as the people authorizing the exchange of data, are what they claim to be.. All blockchain-based data is immutable, of course, but now that we have vLEI, we can also be sure that there are no fake companies integrating and initiating transactions.
“It also gives participants the ability to build business relationships almost instantly, as each is armed with a trustmark. Trusted identity is the fundamental prerequisite for every healthcare scenario. PharmaLedger is excited to work working closely with GLEIF to make the transformative value of vLEI a reality. This is proof that collaboration can and should extend beyond traditional boundaries to create new capabilities that benefit patients – us all.
“PharmaLedger is an early example of how vLEI is transforming the field of organizational identity, benefiting the entire healthcare industry. Ultimately, the vLEI will give government organizations, businesses and all other legal entities worldwide the ability to use non-repudiable identification data regarding their legal status, ownership structure and authorized representatives in all their digital business activities,” adds Stephan Wolf, CEO, GLEIF.
The vLEI addresses an urgent and unmet need for greater security, convenience and ease of use of digital identity for organizations and the people who represent them in official or functional roles. Through vLEI, GLEIF has become the guardian of a decentralized system capable of establishing digital trust between legal entities, not just those in the pharmaceutical industry, but across all industries globally.
It is a unique proposition that leverages ACDC (Authentic Chained Data Container) identifiers and the global LEI system, which is the only open, standardized and regulatory-approved legal entity identification system. . This approach can also interact seamlessly and securely with all technology models, including blockchain, cloud services, and APIs, taking a “network of networks” approach.
During the remainder of 2022, PharmaLedger will focus on “validation and sustainability”. The main goals are to communicate the value proposition of blockchain, prepare use cases for adoption, and continually improve the platform. It will implement and transition to the post-project governance and operating model and actively engage with pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders, inviting them to join the Trusted Ecosystem Journey.
