New Blinded Survey Conducted by Frost & Sullivan Details Long Delays and Heavy Resource Requirements That Impede Data-Driven Insights for Research and Commercialization

SAN FRANCISCO, JANUARY 9, 2024 – Komodo Health today unveiled findings from a new, first-of-its kind survey detailing the challenges to obtaining data-driven insights that continue to impede progress across the U.S. Life Sciences organizations. Conducted independently by Frost & Sullivan, the new blinded survey benchmarks the current state of real-world data (RWD) and analytics, exposing the complexities that teams face in generating meaningful insights — as reported by Life Sciences leaders, middle managers, and data scientists/analysts.

While the rapid growth of RWD and data accessibility has unlocked significant opportunities to accelerate progress in Life Sciences and drive new breakthroughs for patients, companies vary in their ability to realize the full value potential. Among the top findings, most teams work with 4+ data providers, 4+ consultants and spend an average of 7 months integrating and cleaning data before they are able to utilize it for insight generation. For the largest U.S. Life Sciences enterprises, these numbers are even higher as organizations wrestle with uneven access to disparate data types, low confidence in data accuracy, and time-consuming data integration. The new annual survey, conducted anonymously among 300 professionals across Commercial, Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR), and Clinical Development business units,  illustrates the challenges that continue to delay progress and increase the risk of flawed outputs and decision-making. 

The key impediments to using RWD and technology effectively include:

• Complex data curation: The majority of Life Science teams have to purchase data from four different data providers to gain the depth and diversity of insights they need. 
• Time investment: Approximately 70% of teams spend six or more months transforming data into a usable state to extract insights, delaying drug research, development, and delivery. Across all teams, the average was 7 months. 
• Heavy reliance on consultants: Approximately 50% of Life Sciences teams rely on at least four consultants to help them integrate disparate datasets into their systems and/or conduct analyses. More than half (53%) of Clinical Development teams at the largest companies ($1 billion+) report that they rely on consultants for analysis, with more than a quarter (27%) engaging six or more. 
• Lack of Internal data expertise and siloed teams: When asked to rate a list of notorious hurdles to insights, Commercial teams indicated that the varying levels of internal data expertise required to conduct analyses was the most significant challenge to gaining insights. Siloed teams (27%) and the inability to make quick decisions (24%) were among the most significant challenges to using data and technology effectively. 
• Data integration and quality limitations: HEOR and Clinical Development teams indicated that “data management" topped the list of their greatest barriers to insights (39% and 41%, respectively). Data analysis/interpretation followed closely at 32% and 36%, respectively. Clinical Development teams reported data quality as a top challenge (26%). 

“This report exposes the depth of impact the industry grapples with to harness the power of real-world data and the direct link from these challenges to patient lives,” said Greg Caressi, Senior Vice President, Frost & Sullivan. “The insight-generation timelines and pain points detailed in the survey are preventing Life Sciences teams across the product life cycle from getting the data they need to conduct research quickly, deliver therapies to patients who need them, and then measure the impact of those treatments.” 

When asked about challenges specific to their roles in the product life cycle:

• Commercial teams reported that knowing the care setting in which therapy is prescribed (56%), identifying patients at the appropriate time to enable timely HCP engagement (52%), and understanding patient “drop-offs”/therapy discontinuations (51%) are the most difficult insights to obtain.
• The most significant hurdles for HEOR teams include linking claims to specialty datasets (59%), managing data procurement and legal processes (58%), and merging different data sources into a usable dataset (56%); genomics/biomarker, chargemaster, and payer-cost data are the three most challenging insights to obtain. 
• More than half (55%) of Clinical Development teams reported identifying patients from racial or ethnic minority populations as a top challenge, and 53% reported identifying the healthcare providers treating them as equally difficult — affecting their ability to increase clinical trial diversity, which is essential to improving care equity 

“The findings from this survey shine a light on the complexities and barriers to data and analytics software usage, which delay time to critical information that could benefit patients,” said Web Sun, President and Co-Founder, Komodo Health. “With this new survey, we see even more clearly the opportunity for Komodo’s full-stack technology solutions to streamline, accelerate, and centralize insight generation across the Life Sciences enterprise.”

Komodo Health is an industry leader in healthcare technology and data connectivity, powering use of de-identified patient data with analytics and insights through its AI-powered platform. All of Komodo’s platform offerings, workflow applications, and technology services are built on its proprietary Healthcare Map — the industry’s most complete resource for studying real-world patient journeys comprehensively and longitudinally.

To learn more about the survey and the data-mining challenges facing Life Sciences teams, register for Komodo and Frost & Sullivan’s upcoming webinars beginning January 16. 

About Komodo Health
Komodo Health is a technology platform company creating the new standard for real-world data and analytics by pairing the industry’s most complete view of patient encounters with enterprise software and machine learning that connects the dots between individual patient journeys and large-scale health outcomes. Across Life Sciences, payers, providers, and developers, Komodo helps its customers unearth patient-centric insights at scale — marrying clinical data with advanced algorithms and AI-powered software solutions to inform decision-making, close gaps in care, address disease burden, and help enterprises create a more cost-effective, value-driven healthcare system. For more information, visit Komodohealth.com. 

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