AIDEN FLYNN
Exploristics, Belfast, United Kingdom

Abstract

Real-world data has the potential to have a positive impact on the treatment of serious conditions, providing much-needed insights into the health and treatment of patients in an everyday setting. However, the collection of this data can be met with resistance due to privacy concerns surrounding its use and anonymity. Aiden Flynn, CEO of clinical trial data and design experts, Exploristics, explores the power of synthetic data as a means of countering these concerns.

Over the past decade, there has been a surge in real-world data collection. With a multitude of emerging data sources ranging from electronic health records (EHRs), smartphone apps and medical insurance claims, real-world data offers useful information on patients and disease areas that can widen our understanding of the value of new medicines from early clinical development through to post-authorisation. Clinical data gathered in everyday settings has the potential to be used to complement the information garnered from the artificial environment of the randomised controlled trial (RCT), filling knowledge gaps on the use of medicines in the real-world or enabling the evaluation of unstudied factors influencing a patient’s outcome.

However, despite such promise the collection of real-world data is not without its challenges. Drug developers not only face cost and time hurdles in exploring these burgeoning data resources but also the associated issues surrounding patient privacy.

KEEPING IT PRIVATE 

So, how is it possible to harness the possibilities that real-world data offers whilst over ...