Over the past two decades, an explosion in biomarker and genomic research has enabled the life science industry to develop 71 drugs that target cancer, according to a new report from the QuintilesIMS Institute. The development of personalized treatment based on genetic information is one example of data’s growing importance to improving human health. 

“Genetic Information Has Led to Rapid Advances in Targeted Therapies,” says the report, which was published Thursday. (Be sure to view the graphic included with this story.)

“Connecting Insights: Bringing Better Outcomes from Pipeline to Patient Using Data and Analytics” points out the advantages – and the cost – of such information:

  • “More than 700 New Active Substances have entered the healthcare system since 1996 driven by industry use of new technologies, access to rich data sources, and advances in scientific discovery related to biomarkers and genomic research
  • “An increase in the availability of patient and genetic information is moving drug development toward more personalized treatment of the patient— in oncology alone, 71 drugs have launched with pharmacogenomic biomarkers
  • “These advances are also adding complexity and cost to the drug development process”

Quntiles recently merged with IMS, which had launched the IMS Institute in 2011. This is the first report issued by the joint company.

Data, data, data

Just as in real estate where it’s “location, location, location,” in life science the future is “data, data, data.”

However, data has little if any impact if it’s not cross-linked.

The QuintilesIMS report focuses on the importance of “connected insights derived from big data enhance scientific and therapeutic expertise.”

“The future of medicine rests on data. Data, and the analysis of that data, informs drug development, portfolio decisions, prescribing behaviors, patient compliance and reimbursement policy in value-based healthcare systems. The past decades have proven the utility of appropriately curated evidence in improving efficiency and efficacy in clinical development and market access, and perhaps more importantly, in providing actionable insights for the constellation of stakeholders across the healthcare spectrum,” a summary of the report says.

“The biopharma industry has invested in and benefited from the explosion of data and analytics tools that together comprise the core of the evidence packages that continue to drive drug value, but substantial evidence increasingly resides outside the data collected by biopharmaceutical sponsor companies. It is when these disparate data streams are applied to clinical interventional and observational research that a new construct for the development and commercialization of the next generation of medicines becomes clearer. This paper aims to demonstrate that the tools and the process to reach the full potential of this approach already exist, exploring the specifics of how the pieces can be put together, what the tools are, and what applications need to be developed.”

Read the full report at:

http://www.imshealth.com/en/thought-leadership/quintilesims-institute/reports/connecting-insights