Bristol-Myers Squibb, Concerto HealthAI Partner on Cancer Drug Development

On March 28, 2019, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Concerto HealthAI, a company that specialized in oncology-specific real-world data (RWD) and advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled insight solutions for real-world evidence (RWE) generation, announced a multi-year strategic agreement that will cover a diverse range of cancers, integrate multiple data sources, and apply AI and machine learning to accelerate clinical trials, enable robust protocol design, and generate insights for precision oncology treatment and improved patient outcomes.

Bristol-Myers Squibb will use Concerto HealthAI’s RWD and novel AI insights platform, eurekaHealth, to accelerate insights through health economic outcomes and clinical development synthetic-control arm studies. With this agreement, the companies will advance the use of RWE for regulatory purposes, validate clinical application of AI solutions, and execute clinical studies to advance patient care.

“With the increasing importance of [r]eal-[w]orld [d]ata and [r]eal-[w]orld [e]vidence, healthcare providers and regulators need to have confidence in the credibility and accuracy of the data sources and methods of evidence generation,” said Jeff Elton, PhD, CEO of Concerto HealthAI, in a company press release. “Our agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb is a recognition that we have reached a pivot-point for RWE-it is not just a tool for generating insights into the current standard of care, but a field in its own right that can lead to optimization of current treatments and new therapeutic innovations.”

“At Bristol-Myers Squibb, we have seen the value of [r]eal-[w]orld [d]ata in our efforts to discover, develop, and deliver medicines for patients,” said Jeff Conklin, senior vice-president and head of business insights and analytics at Bristol-Myers Squibb, in the press release. “This strategic agreement with Concerto HealthAI-a leader in AI solutions for precision oncology-reinforces our commitment to pursue data science to accelerate disease insights, advance novel study concepts and achieve precision in treatment, with the goal of improving patient outcomes.”

Recently, the 21st Century Cures Act accelerated adoption of RWE-based approaches to clinical trials and post-approval studies. In December 2018, FDA reinforced its commitment to expanding use of RWD in studies-and to preference where RWE would be used for key decisions-by issuing a framework to assess RWE in regulatory decisions and approvals. Concerto HealthAI integrates data from sources, including CancerLinQ, a platform that collects and analyzes real-world data from patients at practices nationwide and delivers knowledge back to physicians and researchers. CancerLinQ is developed and operated by CancerLinQ LLC, a nonprofit subsidiary of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. 

Source: Concerto HealthAI