This article was originally published in STAT.
For manufacturers, building a static commercialization strategy will only take you so far. But infusing that strategy with real-world data (RWD) — consisting of medical claims, lab testing and pharmacy data, and electronic health records — provides a more holistic view of the patient journey.
RWD fills in crucial missing puzzle pieces, especially when it’s integrated alongside payer coverage data. It can show if a patient is unable to access a drug and why — insights that can help manufacturers improve their commercial strategies and increase access, ultimately boosting that manufacturer’s overall market share. Without it, patients experience delays or difficulties in getting the drugs they need, and manufacturers leave money on the table.
Real-world data can also help make the drug development process more efficient, bring drugs to market faster, and drive cost efficiencies overall. It can be used to help manufacturers bring drugs to market that fulfill an unmet need or improve the current standard of care. Furthermore, without real-world data, manufacturers can’t fully understand disease progression or patients’ responses to drugs, or why they may be abandoning treatment.
Take Rachel, a patient diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. RWD can uncover what really happens along her patient journey, from her lab tests, to when she’s diagnosed, to a physician prescribing her a drug, to whether she fills her prescriptions or adheres to treatment, and why. By shedding light on why Rachel might not be filling her prescriptions, real-world data can offer the insight that manufacturers need to fine-tune their strategies and improve patient access.
And that’s just the beginning. Manufacturers can leverage RWD across the product life cycle in a multitude of ways. Here’s a look at other ways that RWD can offer value:
Help Patients Get the Drugs They Need Faster
Through RWD, manufacturers can understand treatment pathways. What challenges might Rachel go through to get on the right therapy? Is she starting therapy quickly enough? If not, what are the reasons for those delays? If doctors are prescribing products off-label, is it because other products have failed, or does the physician need to be informed of other, more effective on-label products? Is Rachel’s therapy being prescribed too late or even too early in the treatment process, causing Rachel to progress or experience comorbidities that could have been avoided?
Manufacturers can then act on this data to fine-tune their commercialization strategies and HCP outreach in near real time. The data can help determine how long Rachel has to wait before taking a drug, and whether step therapies or other coverage restrictions are involved. From there, manufacturers can hone their marketing strategies to communicate to payers why certain steps are unnecessary, and help patients get on the right treatment sooner.
Moreover, real-world data can illuminate how a step removal will impact the patient population and project its impact on sales and the speed at which a patient can access therapy, which could lead to more specific drug rebate contracts with payers and determine whether contracts are paying dividends. Real-world data also provides other cost- and reimbursement-related details like prior authorization and quantity limits, and information on rebates, coupons, deductibles, co-insurance, and out-of-pocket costs and other payment amounts.
Improve HCP Marketing Strategies
Targeting doctors with positive patient outcome stories is an effective strategy for manufacturers’ marketing teams, and real-world data helps in this area, too. It arms marketers with information that shows physicians why they can feel good about prescribing their products. For example, through lab alerts, manufacturers can find and target physicians who are likely to make prescribing decisions soon.
Lab data can show which physicians are testing for a disease but treating patients with a competitor drug or the wrong therapy, or physicians who are not conducting relevant tests for a patient population. Manufacturers can use this information to invest in targeted education initiatives with these physicians and increase the likelihood that their patient will get on the right therapies.
Illustrate the Patient Journey for Biosimilars
As more biosimilars enter the marketplace, real-world data plays an increasingly prominent role. For example, if Rachel is prescribed Humira to treat her rheumatoid arthritis and her out-of-pocket cost is high, she’s more likely to skip doses or not fill the prescription at all, which won’t help her symptoms improve. When a biosimilar launches, patients like Rachel who switch to a lower-cost biosimilar will likely have lower out-of-pocket costs, and are therefore more likely to adhere to treatment.
Real-world data helps manufacturers understand how many patients are switching from Humira to a biosimilar and their cost differentials. From there, they can determine whether enough patients are switching and how manufacturers can improve those numbers.
For treatment-naive patients, RWD — along with payer coverage data — can provide insight into whether patients are taking a biosimilar first, and which payers may be placing some brands in a preferred position on the formulary and are likely to have contracts in place with those competitors — data points that can, ultimately, help much-needed medications get into the hands of the patients who need them.
Increase Access for Rare Disease Drugs
RWD helps pinpoint whether a payer is too restrictive in coverage because they don’t understand the uses for rare disease drugs. In the rare disease space, which has small patient populations, payers may not publicly publish that they cover a drug or put it on their formulary, so manufacturers don’t know if their drug is blocked or covered. Real-world data can uncover this information by showing how many patients qualified for the drug, how many claims were processed, and how many got on therapy. Without this insight, manufacturers’ account teams may be spinning their wheels, unable to target the right payers with the highest potential patient populations.
A lack of real-world data puts any commercialization strategy on shaky ground. Harnessing the power of RWD and getting that data to talk gives manufacturers a holistic view of the patient journey, which can help boost market share, maximize ROI and, most importantly, increase patient access to life-saving therapies.
To see how real-world data can inform your market access strategy, especially when integrated with payer coverage data, learn more about MMIT’s real-world data.
