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Drugmakers use real-world patient data to calibrate product development

Nature Biotechnology volume 29, pages 778–779 (2011)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 09 January 2012

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Several large biotech companies contacted by Nature Biotechnology were unwilling to comment on the topic, even though it is relevant to many of the industry's major biologics franchises. These are complex drug markets with multiple products and multiple sub-populations, and thus amenable to comparative effectiveness research. By incorporating 'real world' analyses, biopharma companies could potentially examine the effectiveness of marketed drugs, pinpoint the specific settings in which a particular drug works best and identify the most promising opportunities for new drug development. Even so, this information, if applied to comparative effectiveness research, could prove to be a double-edged sword. “It could actually increase revenue if your drug comes out on the winning side of the research. By the same token you could also lose out,” says Brett Gaspers, managing director of Objective Insights, an Edmonds, Washington–based healthcare business analysis consultancy.

Prompted by rising drug prices, payers have started flexing their muscles and conducting their own independent analyses. As a consequence, drug firms are likely to be pushed into this area if they do not jump. “It's not something that's avoidable,” says Tehseen Salimi, vice president for global evidence and value development at Sanofi. UK pharma company AstraZeneca takes a similar view. “We think the greater risk is for us to be not aware of the outcomes and the safety that our products deliver,” says Brian Sweet, AstraZeneca's executive director, development. “I think if we don't do this, we're not delivering what the market is requesting.”

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Change history

  • 09 January 2012

    In the version of this article initially published, Medco Health Solutions’ location was given as Wilmington, Delaware; it is located in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. On p. 779, in the first paragraph, left column, UBC is said to be HealthCore’s parent company. In fact, Wellpoint is HealthCore’s parent company. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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    Cormac Sheridan

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Sheridan, C. Drugmakers use real-world patient data to calibrate product development. Nat Biotechnol 29, 778–779 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0911-778b

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