28 September 2018 - Real world data hold the promise to substantially increase the effectiveness and efficiency of all processes in the development and utilisation of medicines, from research and development, to regulatory decision-making, pricing and reimbursement decisions to use in medical practice. 

However, to realise the full potential of real world data requires a ‘learning health care system’, write the EMA Executive Director and Senior Medical Officer, as well as heads of three national EU agencies, and academia, payer, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development representatives, in a paper published in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

A ‘learning health care system’, based on electronic health records and other routinely collected healthcare data, would allow real world data to be continuously fed into the system, ensuring that with every new patient treated, we know more overall about the practice of medicine.

Read EMA press release