Building on its acquisition of Kantar Health last year, Cerner created a new business unit focused on providing real-world data solutions and research services to life sciences companies to support clinical trials.
The division, called Enviza, combines Cerner's data business with Kantar Health's data, analytics and research expertise to help accelerate discovery, development and deployment of therapies and advance clinical research, the company said in a press release.
Currently, new therapies can take, on average, 17 years and $2.5 billion to finally reach patients. Cerner wants to leverage its data and research capabilities to unlock the power of data and a network of research-ready health systems to help get therapies to patients more quickly and at less expense, the company said.
In addition, a key focus will be on broadening the availability and participation in trials to help achieve more equitable results. For example, according to one study, only 3% of physicians and patients participate in trials and only a fraction of eligible patients receive the new treatments.
“The true promise of the digital age is to use data to improve everyday health around the world,” said David Feinberg, M.D., president and CEO of Cerner, in a statement. “Healthcare is far too complex, inefficient and expensive. We have to break down industry silos and evolve from simply accumulating data to generating meaningful insights that can accelerate therapy development. With Cerner Enviza, we can arm researchers with diverse tools and datasets to help them address these challenges and help change the way we develop and deliver care for our patients."
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In December, the health IT giant announced plans to buy the health division of Kantar Group for $375 million, setting its sights on building a $1 billion data business for the healthcare and life sciences industries.
Cerner Enviza leverages the decades of life sciences expertise of Kantar Health spanning commercial, real-world, clinical and regulatory research and Cerner’s broad range of provider networks and unique data sets—including an electronic health record data set of 98 million patients that has largely been unavailable to the life sciences industry, according to Cerner executives.
The combination of these assets enables electronic health record data to be linked with claims data sets and patient-reported outcomes to provide a more complete picture of patients.
“With Cerner Enviza, we bring together the expertise, assets and capabilities of Kantar Health with Cerner’s technology and access to a large collection of deidentified patient health data,” said Mike Kelly, global head of Cerner Enviza, in a statement. “Our approach unites the life sciences and healthcare providers to support research and trial opportunities across this ecosystem. The goal is to significantly reduce the timeframe and cost from idea to therapy delivery to help achieve better patient outcomes.”