Pharma companies are engaged in a never-ending quest to get more effective, safer therapies to patients in a faster and more accessible manner. They are constantly looking for ways to innovate, whether that’s exploring new drug classes for rare diseases or creatively connecting with audiences to enhance equity across communities in need.
But there are still unexplored areas of opportunity for strengthening – and shortening – the R&D pipeline. And real-world data (RWD) is at the top of that list.
While the use of RWD in clinical trials has increased since the pandemic, we’re still extracting only a tiny fraction of the benefit that rich, curated, multi-modal, real-world information can provide to us.
So the question remains, why aren’t more pharma companies using RWD as a core component of research and development, especially when evidence is piling up that it can change the way we view drug development and precision medicine?
There are several reasons, starting with the enormous challenge of building momentum in a multi-trillion-dollar industry that prides itself on well-defined, detailed processes and pathways. Pharma companies are used to doing things the way they have always done them, and it can take a long time and a lot of resources to change those models at scale.
It may seem daunting to tackle the industry’s inertia, but the rewards will more than make up for the efforts.
For example, using RWD to look at populations of patients prior to launching a clinical trial can save millions of dollars and significant time by helping to avoid amendments during the process. The average clinical trial requires around six or seven amendments at a cost of approximately half a million each, often due to mid-stream adjustments in inclusion and exclusion criteria. Looking at curated electronic health record data beforehand can reduce those numbers significantly and produce an immediate financial return on investment while shortening the completion time for important phases of research.
RWD can also help pharma companies engage with digitally savvy audiences more effectively to showcase the efficacy of in-market therapies in targeted patient populations. Using advanced AI tools, such as the ones COTA provides, a representative could present rapid insights drawn from real-world examples of patients that closely match the biomarkers, comorbidities, and other features of populations under treatment.
These tools can offer highly accurate, meaningful data to providers who are choosing the best option for their patients, which not only improves the likelihood of a better outcome, but also builds trust across the patient-provider-pharma relationship.
We know that infusing RWD into the R&D process will take time and sustained effort from everyone involved in the oncology community, from pioneering drug developers and regulators to patient advocacy groups, providers, and RWD companies like COTA who are providing the fuel for next-generation clinical breakthroughs.
Continual exposure to new ideas is the best way to make change happen. The pace will only accelerate faster and faster as more and more companies recognize the value of RWD and start to build additional evidence for regulators and competitors that using these datasets can effectively support shorter, less expensive, more robust clinical trials.
It’s an exciting time to be at the forefront of this paradigm shift and help build a new approach to using RWD in oncology to shorten the time, simplify the processes, and reduce the investments required to bring more effective therapies to patients in need.
