Hello and welcome back to Real-World Data After Dark. We are pretty confident this is the only ever kind of pharma analytics talk show. So bear with us with the format. My name is Daniel Chancellor, VP of though leadership at Norstella and your host for today. If you joined us last time, which we hope you did, then you’ll already be well acquainted with our two guests. We have Maddie and Lance. I will introduce them anyway. Dr. Madeline Naylor is our chief clinician at Norstella. Welcome back, Maddie.
Thank you so much. Looking forward to the show
Today. Thank you. Lance, welcome, senior principal of RWD Solutions. Welcome back.
Thank you. Looking forward to the discussion again.
So last time out, we had a bit more of a conversation starter getting to know you. The goal for today is to dive a little bit more into the work that you’re doing and what RWD means to you guys and how that helps pharma bring new treatments through to patients. So this is a talk show, we’re going to be doing it with a bit of a twist. So we’re going to have a bit of a game show vibe here. So what I’d like for you both is to have virtual buzzers because I’m going to be pitting you both against each other, keeping score. I say that in the loosest sense of the word, but yeah, I can hopefully get some competitive juices flowing. How does that sound?
Perfect. Yeah.
Sounds great. Awesome
Fighting talk. Right. So our first game is one that we’re going to call acronym showdown. What I’d like you to do in 30 seconds or less is I’ll shout out an acronym. And what I want is a response as to firstly, what that acronym is, but more importantly, what does it mean in terms of your pharma clients and what Norstella does? First, a buzz-in gets the right to answer and I’ll kind of judge very loosely as to what I think about the answer.
I’m moving closer to my screen, so hopefully that gives me a slight advantage.
Okay. Well, our first acronym is RWD.
Buzz. Budge.
Lance, that’s on you. 30 second starts now.
I think RWD has taken a change over the last 10, 15 years right there. What it really means, at least to me and the clients that we work with is just information. Anything from diagnosing patients, anything from a treatment of patients there. I think what’s really, really exciting over the last year and a half is lab data and EMR data. Those are new Ds to the actual RWD system right there. And it gives a lot more level of information. Where I think RWD and its sister or brother that’s exciting is RWE. What can we do with that level of information? I think that’s what’s really been changing lately is taking the raw material, which is the D and bringing it to evidence and insights.
I mean, I’m the one that’s supposed to be coming with acronyms. You just given me a whole bunch of acronyms that aren’t on my sheet here. Lance,
That was a very good answer. I’ll give you that one. That was a great answer. Sure.
Can we start then? Did I win? Can we go on?
No. We’ll say is this one no, you won the first round, but we’ve got a few more rounds, a couple more rounds. So next up, and you also mentioned this, is EMR. That’s all yours, Maddie.
EMR is electronic medical record. Talking about this in 30 seconds is going to be really hard because this is my world every day. So in the electronic medical records, we now have access to all of the EMR data for patients. Being able to see when we say structured data and unstructured data, which has really been where we see the future of RWD moving, those unstructured clinical notes, we can see what is actually happening from a clinical perspective between the patient and their provider. So seeing those treatment decisions, why are treatment decisions occurring, seeing all the clinical aspects of a patient, their symptoms, how they’re presenting, how their actual true patient journey looks. So it’s really changed the way that we’ve been able to find patients. We’ve been able to help our clients. We’ve been able to get drugs to market, really paving the way in the RWD space and how we can revolutionize the data and really get, as Lance was saying, those insights and evidence to our clients.
Awesome. That’s definitely a one-one. So it comes down to the decider. Our final acronym is ROI. What does that mean to you?
BUS. That’s going to be my new catchphrase. Yeah. ROIs, it’s a very interesting discussion, especially when we have clients in pharma. How do you measure the return on the investment right there? So a lot of people think about it’s the monetary amount of there. That’s one thing to really think about it. I spend X, I get Y out of that. I think what we are really seeing, especially some of the work that we’re doing, especially what Dr. Naylor said was actually is how are we changing things right there. And investment can be how are we supporting our clients for them to develop new and life-saving therapies right there. That’s really the return on the investment right there. It’s just not about the dollars and cents. It’s about them actually getting new insights to bring therapies to market, identifying new patients right there, actually extending potential lives out there, right there.
I think that’s really what the return on the investment is right there. And so to us, I think it’s really how we can potentially change the given market, how we can support our clients, work with them, and give them the level of insights they need to get to that next step in their journey.
Yeah. Very well said.
We had one client who told us that being a part of our data and our programs was the most impactful thing that they have ever experienced working at that pharmaceutical company. And it’s one of the large pharmaceutical companies in the industry. So to be able to hear that, that these pharmaceutical companies do a lot of initiatives. They bring a lot of lifesaving drugs to the market, but knowing our data was the most impactful thing that they’ve experienced, knowing that our team, the excellent team we have behind the data, helped do that and helped bring that to life. I mean, that’s the ROI that as the chief clinician that I always look to measure is how many lives can we really save and how can we help people every day.
Thank you, Maddie.That wasn’t your response. I know, but I wanted to add everyone. Let’s call it 2-2. So I’ll call that one a draw. So our tiebreaker, and this is the final game for today’s episode, is for you to get your crystal balls out. We’re going to call it predict the future. And I’ll give you both a shot to answer and I’ll come to you first, Lance. In five years, what do you think is the biggest or within the next five years, what do you think is the biggest development or trend in the RWD space?
It’s amazing. Fortunately or unfortunately, I’ve been in this space for like 20 plus years right there. So it kind of ages me where historically we used to just deal with data like Excel spreadsheets right there. What I think is really changing and evolving in the market is how we’re using large language models right there. So data in and of itself is just, it’s easy to access right there. I’ll just say that. There’s claims data. You can get who took a drug, what types of patients that a physician see, et cetera like that. The predictive models that we’re able to develop and understanding what are the early indicators of disease, I think is what the next stage in this environment is really. It’s not about getting to the patient when they’re diagnosed, it’s about getting to the patient prior to them being diagnosed. How can we change that evolvement there where now that five, 10-year survival rates increase proportionately there.
So I think large language models and I think the exciting thing about that is someone like myself who’s done a lot of data work and data science there and working with someone like Dr. Naylor who has the clinical expertise and the partnership of bringing data and science together and clinical expertise is where I think the market is going to. And I think that that’s what’s really exciting about some of the stuff we’re doing here today.
And the same question to you, Maddie. Does that encourage you or scare you as a clinician to hear predicting someone, an event before it even happens?
It’s extremely encouraging. So what we’re able to do with the level of data access we have and how we’re able to really see the clinical characteristics of the patient like data couldn’t see before I think this is the future and how we could really help patients. I mean, things that we were missing so much in an RWD space, your imaging, your labs, your clinical manifestations, all of those key things. Now as the clinician, I can map those out. I can predict even before a patient gets a confirmed diagnosis, we can get them on treatment earlier. This could really change the way medicine works. So I think it’s exciting to get me to come from patient care into the data space. It was a big change and a big move for me, but knowing how much we are can really just change the way of how patients get treatment, it’s really exciting.
I’m excited to see where we are in five years from
Today. Yeah. And although I know this is a competitive game, to be honest, we work really close together and there are times where we’re working on things and we can geek out and nerd out and like, “Have you thought about this before?” And I’m like, “No, how do we do that? ” And partnering with someone like Dr. Naylor, I think it just makes things exciting. And if you would’ve asked us even 18 months ago, I was like, “These things can’t be done.” But the market is changing and the world that we work in is changing there. So even though we’re competitive on this game right here, we work really, really close together.
I really, really wanted to pick a winner, but yeah, I think basically call it a tie and not just a tie, you’re both winners. That’s what celebrates.
Thank you.
So that’s a wrap for today. Thank you, Maddie and Lance and thank you for those who are watching us. Stay tuned for our next episode where we’re going to be talking a bit more about how our clients saw the real world impact of real world data and actually Maddie teased this earlier and why that client said it was the most impactful project they’ve ever been worked on. So with that cliffhanger, I’m going to wish you good night.
