Resilient Multi-Agent Negotiation for Medical Supply Chains:Integrating LLMs and Blockchain for Transparent Coordination

Abstract

Global health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have exposed critical weaknesses in traditional medical supply chains, including inefficiencies in resource allocation, lack of transparency, and poor adaptability to dynamic disruptions. This paper presents a novel hybrid framework that integrates blockchain technology with a decentralized, large language model (LLM) powered multi-agent negotiation system to enhance the resilience and accountability of medical supply chains during crises. In this system, autonomous agents-representing manufacturers, distributors, and healthcare institutions-engage in structured, context-aware negotiation and decision-making processes facilitated by LLMs, enabling rapid and ethical allocation of scarce medical resources. The off-chain agent layer supports adaptive reasoning and local decision-making, while the on-chain blockchain layer ensures immutable, transparent, and auditable enforcement of decisions via smart contracts. The framework also incorporates a formal cross-layer communication protocol to bridge decentralized negotiation with institutional enforcement. A simulation environment emulating pandemic scenarios evaluates the system's performance, demonstrating improvements in negotiation efficiency, fairness of allocation, supply chain responsiveness, and auditability. This research contributes an innovative approach that synergizes blockchain trust guarantees with the adaptive intelligence of LLM-driven agents, providing a robust and scalable solution for critical supply chain coordination under uncertainty.