What I saw at ICPE 2023

I just had the pleasure and privilege of attending the 39th International Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology (ICPE) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This long-running event is an opportunity for the pharmacoepidemiology community to present its latest and most cutting-edge research, discuss new methodological approaches, and have a bit of fun all in the same place. I was thrilled to be on the ground experiencing the dynamic environment and wanted to share some of my takeaways:

1. There is always work to be done in developing and honing new methodologies, but scalability is the next frontier in real-world evidence (RWE) generation. One of the topics I heard repeatedly was how to operationalize real-world data (RWD) analysis and improve code lists, outcome classification, and patient-generated health data in an efficient manner. Aetion and our Aetion Evidence Platform applications excel in this area, with no-code programming and the ability to generate meaningful evidence at scale.
2. Fit-for-purposeness is the name of the game across every facet of an RWE study. Whether it’s the data, study design, or the actual implementation of the study, you need to make principled decisions that reflect scientific best practices.
3. We need to think outside the box and step away from the “that’s the way it’s always been done” paradigm. For example: pregnancy safety studies can become onerous due to rare exposures and outcomes and take a long time to yield results. How can we leverage the power of data to design a better approach to these crucial studies?

One final takeaway (perhaps shameless) is how proud I am to see how Aetion continues to be an industry leader in decision-grade RWE. Our brilliant team of scientists and colleagues contributed to five presentations and eighteen posters, three of which were spotlight sessions. Our team tirelessly works to advance the scientific field, and these presentations are a microcosm of the work we do on a daily basis. At our booth, we experienced fantastic client engagement, including in-depth conversations on how we can embed our Aetion® Substantiate application into everyday biopharma business operations. Our new application, Aetion® Discover – which provides highly visual, quick analytics on RWD – continues to gain a lot of interest from a variety of biopharma stakeholders, which is extremely gratifying. The A-Team shows no signs of slowing down, as evidenced by the launch of SURF, a screening tool that biopharma teams can use to identify development programs that have the best chances of using RWE to support a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. 

If you are interested in learning more about how RWD, RWE, synthetic data and generative AI, and Aetion’s platform applications can help accelerate your business and bring medicines to patients faster, please connect with us here.