If one use case defines blockchain in pharma, it is data: who owns a patient’s record, who can see it and how anyone can trust that it hasn’t been altered. A landscape study of 491 patent families finds that this is where most of the innovation sits.

Health records are the centre of gravity

Health record management accounts for 312 of the 491 patents. Within that group, 163 relate to patient records and 14 to organization or hospital records, which works out to roughly 52% and 5% of the category. Many patents are tagged under several categories at once, so these overlap.

Patient record patents mainly originate in the US and China. Most combine blockchain with a distributed network ledger, and hash tables are the most common mechanism for managing health-related records. Around 61 patient-record patents use a distributed network ledger. Organization and hospital record patents rely on blockchain, machine learning, hash tables and distributed ledgers, and most are alive and recently filed. The study notes that record maintenance by blockchain has mostly been published in the last four years.

Cognitive Scale and Nokia hold the highest number of patents on patient records, while patient record management and payment inventions are mostly filed by universities and Cognitive Scale.

Authentication and verification

Proving that a record is genuine is a second major theme. About 16% of patents on authentication and verification of data use blockchain, and distributed ledger patents include roughly 12% on maintaining patient records and 7% on authentication and verification. Filers in this area are mostly universities, Netspective, IBM and Walmart. Examples include China University of Geosciences, which claims record verification and management using digital cryptocurrency with blockchain, and Ping An Insurance, which describes automated replication of electronic medical records between a patient and a healthcare provider using hash tables and blockchain.

Exchanging records

Moving data between institutions is a natural fit for a shared ledger. Zerobillbank Ltd, a Japan-based company, has a patent on exchanging patient information between hospitals through blockchain, protected in China only. Yahoo published a 2018 patent on record management using a distributed network ledger. Technology for patient health management and record exchange using distributed ledgers is mostly filed by universities.

Payments and transactions

Blockchain’s financial roots show in this category, where about 47 patents use it as the major technology. Many use cryptocurrency or a distributed ledger to handle payments. Universities, IBM and Cognitive Scale file most of these. Notable examples:

• Walmart – a patent covering a general ledger for payment and transactions along with a medical benefit plan repository for users.
• Cable Labs – a 2018 patent on healthcare donations using a private distributed ledger.
• Sumitomo – a 2017 filing on delivering drugs based on a prescription using Bitcoin technology.
• Macrogen – a 2018 patent on a prescription transfer system that sends prescriptions electronically and authorizes dispensing.

Why it matters

Patients, hospitals, insurers and pharmacies all need to share sensitive information without relying on a single custodian. The patent data suggests blockchain is being positioned as the trust layer for exactly that. The practical challenge, as always, is moving from patent claims to deployed systems that meet privacy rules, which is where the next wave of activity is likely to focus.

Source: Effectual Services, Patent Landscape Study – Blockchain in Pharma. Figures are based on one representative member per patent family unless stated otherwise.