Earlier this month, APAC Director Pei Li Teh attended Asia’s 11th Eyeforpharma conference in Tokyo, Japan with a focus on Real World Evidence (RWE) This year has seen a turning point for Japan's pharma industry, as the government and the industry encourage a rapid move towards increased use of RWE from April 2018. Real World Data (RWD) sources provide an unprecedented opportunity for companies to find, demonstrate and communicate their real value to patients, healthcare and society. The conference included topics addressing commercial and medical needs, allowing both communities to come together for the first time encouraging collaboration across functions. 
Use of RWE is not limited to just patient outcomes, but the impact has important implications for brand development. Papers that were presented at the conference touched on commercial and medical issues pharma companies face:
- Optimisation of clinical trial – The ability to refine inclusion and exclusion criteria
- Improving access for overall patient journey – Understanding the extent to which under-diagnosis is an issue , and if in reality there are more patients than mentioned by hospitals
- Post marketing needs – Maximising the use of such RWE to support various initiatives on providing better care for patients
- Post clinical trial surveillance – Matching data in an optimal setting with RWE, discovering if patient outcome a match the optimised trial setting
The external environment of healthcare is changing due to factors such as the rise of chronic diseases, aging, pressure on healthcare budget, and payer requirements becoming more sophisticated, therefore, pharma is trying to move from a solution provider to demonstrating value to patients and the healthcare system. Furthermore the opportunities presented by RWE, such as patient-reported outcomes, better care, potential for better resource allocation, are all creating a greater need for the use of RWE.
Throughout the conference it became clear that RWE is no longer a discussion but a requirement, and understandably so; getting it right may determine how successful a brand is in an evolving healthcare environment. Pharma needs to collaborate and work cross-functionally between clinical and commercial (medical, marketing, HEOR and market access) identifying gaps in evidence and how that fits with the value generation process. Pharma also need to identify the right partners to help support them through the process, by looking at the evidence gap and designing a credible research platform to address the objectives of all stakeholders.
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