CRO

Labcorp moves to bolster RWD offering with HealthVerity collaboration

Labcorp has partnered with real-world data tech firm HealthVerity, citing growing drug industry demand for patient insights.

The collaboration will focus on HealthVerity’s Identity, Privacy, Governance, and Exchange (IPGE) platform, which is used to store and analyze de-identified patient data. Labcorp says the technology will allow it to align de-identified patient data for use in clinical trials more accurately than current alternatives.

A spokesperson told Fierce Biotech that HealthVerity will bring a de-identified data marketplace that life sciences companies can use to access data in a ready-to-use format. Sponsor interest for real-world data is increasing, according to the spokesperson, who said, “Demand is healthy and has driven our partnership." 

Real-world data can benefit clinical trials and provide insights into patients during "the course of their health care lifecycle," including during standard treatment regimens and their everyday lives, the spokesperson said. 

Labcorp pointed to the increasing use of real-world data to train AI technologies used for protocol design optimization and digitally enhanced recruiting as well as better therapeutic area research on longitudinal de-identified data as other applications.

Regulatory support from the FDA and other government agencies for use of real-world data is another factor increasing its use by industry, the spokesperson said. 

Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed. Labcorp is an investor in HealthVerity through the Labcorp Venture Fund.

The collaboration comes less than a year after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contracted HealthVerity to provide a large-scale, real-world data set to advance COVID-19 research, decision-making and public health impact objectives.