AstraZeneca teams with PicnicHealth to answer cancer research questions
PicnicHealth has teamed with AstraZeneca in a “multi-year” partnership with AstraZeneca to advance real-world data development for early breast cancer.
The San Francisco-based health tech firm announced the agreement last week, explaining the aim is to build an innovative registry to generate longitudinal real-world data from a cohort of consenting US patients diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancers.
It added that the registry will empower participants by organizing and centralizing their complete medical record into an easy-to-use portal, while also enabling patients to contribute their de-identified data to advance breast cancer research.
Noga Leviner, CEO and Co-Founder, PicnicHealth said “Our partnership with AstraZeneca leverages the strengths of the PicnicHealth solution, as we will help collect and structure medical records data from the wide range of care experiences common in early breast cancer including primary care, surgery, radiology, and oncology along with patient-reported outcomes data.”
This was echoed by Dan Drozd, MD, Chief Medical Officer at PicnicHealth. “Advancing research requires big-picture data illustrating long-term patient experiences and outcomes which one can only collect and compile by working directly with patients.”
Carlos Doti, head of US Oncology medical affairs for AstraZeneca, contrasted the approach with current data organisation methods and predicted the collaboration would help the firm answer new “research questions.”
“Existing breast cancer datasets focus on care provided within the oncology specialist setting, but don’t necessarily paint a complete picture of the patient's journey before cancer, their early journey being diagnosed with cancer, or their experience after cancer.
“Through our partnership with PicnicHealth, we hope to better understand the full patient experience, address new research questions, and ultimately improve patient outcomes and the overall experience of people living with breast cancer.”
The deal is PicnicHealth’s second major partnership this year. In April it announced that Roche’s Genentech had expanded at partnership focused on accelerating neurological disease research through investments in real-world data.
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