The award was announced during the ConV2X 2021 conference, themed “Blueprint for a New Digital Health Era,” broadcast November 9-11, 2021. The winning article is titled: "The Last Mile: DSCSA Solution Through Blockchain Technology: Drug Tracking, Tracing, and Verification at the Last Mile of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain with BRUINchain," by lead author William Chien (PharmD, MBA) and fellow authors from UCLA Health and LedgerDomain. The article is located at https://doi.org/10.30953/bhty.v3.134.

The groundbreaking article was part of the FDA’s Pilot Project Program for the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA), and centered on a healthcare center pharmacy operating solely on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology. It presented the highest number of BHTY 2020 reader engagements, with the most downloads and views.

The study demonstrated a 100% success rate across scanning, expiration detection, and counterfeit detection; and paperwork reduction from approximately 1 hour to less than a minute. Projecting out to 4.2 billion prescriptions being dispensed each year in the United States, the study found that distributed ledger technologies (such as blockchain) would not only save $183 million in annual labor costs, but also avert bad or fraudulent transactions, reduce the need for safety stock, and enhance the detection and removal of potentially dangerous drugs from the drug supply chain to protect U.S. consumers.