The potential for real-world evidence (RWE) to improve patient lives and better protect privacy has increased significantly in the past six months.
Public health agencies across the globe have been calling for greater data sharing for decades. When COVID-19 began its global spread, regulatory agencies and innovators leapt to action — breaking down barriers to access and accelerating scientific progress at a truly staggering pace. RWE has played a critical role in the development and deployment of clinical interventions since April of last year, and Aetion has been proud to help drive RWE toward standardization as a valuable analytical practice for regulators and innovators across the world.
Today, it’s a privilege to announce Aetion’s first acquisition: Replica Analytics, a pioneer in synthetic health data generation. With this acquisition, we will be adding another next-gen analytical tool to our growing technology toolbox. Replica’s technology generates privacy-protected, synthetic copies of real-world data (RWD) while preserving the statistical integrity and utility of the original data.
Synthetic data is emerging as an invaluable asset for researchers in life sciences navigating the complexities of data protection laws across geographies. These data have proven to be an effective, high utility alternative when real data is not available or not accessible. The potential use cases for synthetic data are vast. The addition of Replica’s technology to our portfolio empowers our customers with greater access to the rich information in real-world datasets that they need to accelerate scientific findings.
This is just the latest development in what has been a year of unwavering growth for Aetion. Over the past few months alone, we’ve launched a number of new and exciting initiatives and partnerships. In October, we announced the next step in our relationship with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including the agency’s use of Aetion Evidence Platform® (AEP) to generate RWE on inpatient COVID-19 therapies.
We’ve also begun expanding our global partnerships, including with the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to explore how RWE can be used to study real-world clinical effectiveness and with the European Medicines Agency to support safety and efficacy research in Europe.
As Aetion continues to grow our portfolio of technologies and develop new RWE solutions — through partnerships with global regulatory agencies, with industry leaders like Cegedim Health Data, Quinten Health, and now, through our acquisition of Replica Analytics — our healthcare partners are reaping the benefits. We are determined to sustain this momentum, to continue enabling smarter decision-making, and to keep leading the way toward a more efficient healthcare system.