Real-world data (RWD) is transforming the life sciences industry, giving pharma companies valuable insights into the patient journey and helping more people get the life-saving treatments they need. To discuss the power of real-world data, where it’s headed, and how it’s fueling Norstella’s next generation of product development, we caught up with Kris Kaneta, Chief Product Officer, and Ted Search, GM of RWD at Norstella.
Q: NorstellaLinQ, our fully integrated data asset, is paving the way for breakthroughs in drug development and commercialization. How is NorstellaLinQ different from traditional EMR or claims-only data sources, and how are we ensuring breadth, depth, and quality of data?
Ted Search: We’ve focused on building a real-world data set with a strong focus on clinical data. One of our biggest differentiators is using unstructured data. The insights that you can get from connecting it to structured data has been a significant advancement in driving more action, insights, results, and answers for our partners.
Plus, we have an expert team with not only strong data science capabilities but strong clinical capabilities as well. We’re bringing in clinical notes, labs, and imaging, taking insights in the notes and translating that to what’s actually happening with the patient and patient-provider interactions. Leveraging structured and unstructured data with our clinical and scientific expertise gives you a more complete view of the patient journey.
Q: From a product perspective, how does this rich, robust foundation of data translate into action for our clients?
Kris Kaneta: I think about it in terms of three unique foundational components that are paving the way across our industry, but particularly within Norstella. One is this incredible real-world data asset. We have 70 billion data points that paint a more cohesive picture than ever before around the patient journey. The second piece is applying contextual awareness around that data to look at projected clinical trial duration or investigator selection or market access barriers. The third piece is that biopharma at large needs to share best practices to come together and drive product innovation. Although I would love to tell you that the folks developing our products are the smartest people in the room, it really doesn’t happen without the insights that our clients help create. That could help solve the challenges that stand in the way of a patient getting on therapy, enrolling in a clinical trial, figuring out what prior authorization will be required to get a patient on therapy or even identifying who these patients are.
Q: As we found in our RWD survey, there’s often a lag for life sciences companies in getting from data to decisions. How is NorstellaLinQ designed to help clients overcome this, and where does AI fit in?
KK: Real-world data is both amazing and challenging in its vastness. We’re making it accessible and increasing speed to insight through the applications of data science, AI, large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP). We’re fortunate to have 3 billion unstructured clinical notes, which would take a normal human a few lifetimes to go through, but now, with a few prompts in a matter of minutes, we’re drawing insights about first and second lines of therapy, reasons a patient failed that therapy, and the overall sentiment about drugs that our clients are bringing to market. All these things would’ve required an immeasurable amount of computational power even just a few years ago. Our ability to deliver those insights with input from clinical experts to understand key questions about patients drives value. It’s not the vastness of data; it’s not the total number of bytes and terabytes. It’s what you need to understand as it relates to a patient population, therapeutic area, or physician population. Those are the types of things that we can find out in a matter of minutes, and it’s really exciting.
Q: What are some of the most impactful client use cases you’ve seen? Where are customers using RWD to solve problems that they just couldn’t before?
TS: There have been many, particularly around the impact of clinical trials and clinical trial recruitment. We’ve all seen those slides on how much it costs to get a therapy not only into a trial, but to get the right patient selected to get it approved. We all know the value of speed in that area, not only for the company that’s losing millions of dollars a day because of delays, but also for patients that really need access to that therapy. By creating a clinical data set, unlocking the power of very specific data and unstructured data, and by using our Trialtrove and Sitetrove products, we can see where trials are, what the protocols are, what patients specifically can match, and proximity to hospital systems or physicians in a surrounding area. Having all that information at the right time can impact a patient’s chance to get on a trial that can impact their care.
Q: Looking ahead, how do you see RWD evolving over the next two to three years and how can the industry stay ahead?
KK: Integrating disparate data assets continues to be a challenge. The advancements we’re seeing across our industry, notably within Norstella, to bring together claims, labs, EHR, and other types of assets, and being able to link those to a specific patient to see that patient journey, will be so important. That will continue to evolve given the breathtaking pace of change as it comes to AI.
In terms of the amount of time we spend combing through data, paging through millions and millions of rows of information, AI will free up cognitive burden. Instead of doing the data wrangling, you can ask yourself, ‘What’s the data telling me, and how does that inform the decision I have to make today?’
TS: AI is going to change the game. Not in 12 months, not in 24 months, I mean every few months. Norstella’s positioned really well to take advantage of it. Not only have we created a significant clinical real-world data asset, but also, we have proprietary data assets that have been built out over time from our products, our market access data, and our clinical expertise. From a clinical standpoint, it’s not just about leveraging LLMs, but it’s actually leveraging the LLMs on proprietary intelligence that you’re creating so they can build and learn off of that. Our clients can analyze the data better than ever before. It’s going to be an exciting 12 months ahead with these technologies and partnerships with our clients.