Doctor Evidence Partnering with Healthcare Decision-Makers on Hepatitis C Evidence
Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) July 29, 2014 -- Doctor Evidence (“DRE”), the Santa Monica, California-based healthcare information leader has responded to marketplace clamor related to the transformative innovations in Hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments with a comprehensive comparative effectiveness database that allows healthcare decision-makers to quickly identify and synthesize available evidence in this evolving market. The DRE HCV Data Hub–currently being used by an increasing number of payers, provider groups, guideline developers and manufacturers—provides the body of published evidence around HCV screening, diagnosis and treatment in a universally transparent and accessible software-service model. The initial wave of engagements and questions across these stakeholders is facilitating evidence-based decisions regarding patient subgroup considerations, coverage decisions, treatment comparisons, and to inform evolving research and real-world evidence opportunities.
The HCV space has undergone significant change in the past year since the approval and launch of Gilead Sciences’ Sovaldi™—the first in a new class of Direct-Acting Antiviral (DAA) agents that hold great promise for patients afflicted with HCV. Over the next several years, additional manufacturers are poised to launch different DAA treatment regimens. The emerging DAAs and myriad of potential multi-treatment regimens tend to offer considerably greater clinical benefit, with fewer side effects, than the interferon-containing regimens that have been the standard of care for decades. The prevalence of HCV (estimated to be 3.2 million Americans by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) combined with the effectiveness and cost of the new regimens has attracted the attention of regulators and policy makers, despite apparent gains in longer-term cost offsets offered by higher “cure” rates with the newer DAAs. The US Government has recently called on Gilead to make a detailed presentation in front of Congress regarding the pricing of Sovaldi™ as the elevated scrutiny will continue with the emerging DAAs breakthrough designation status related to US healthcare costs. It is important for all stakeholders to have access to the rapidly evolving clinical evidence, which will define the shifting landscape and be the cornerstone of this debate.
“Doctor Evidence is excited about the promise these truly innovative treatments hold for patients. We are centrally positioned to help answer the particularly challenging questions many decision-makers and patients have to consider,” said Bob Battista, CEO and Co-Founder of Doctor Evidence. “Payers, provider groups, manufacturers, and patients have very specific and important questions in this potentially curative, rejuvenated and evolving area of medicine. HCV is potentially just the beginning of liver disease cures and is causing a paradigm-shift in how to evaluate the cost of therapies in relation to the cost of alternative treatment routes and quality of life. Doctor Evidence, through its HCV Data Hub and GROWTH initiative, is playing a key role in providing an unbiased, objective transparent view of the evidence.”
About Doctor Evidence, LLC
Doctor Evidence, LLC, (http://www.drevidence.com) founded in 2004, is a leader in technological solutions for Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) with a mission to provide stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem with the most timely and relevant medical evidence and related analytics to make and inform the best clinical decisions. Historically, Doctor Evidence is best known for its proprietary Digital Outcome Conversion (DOC™) platform and its rigorous methodology of extracting clinical data from static sources, including published studies, FDA labels, and epidemiological databases, and creating dynamic, scientifically-curated data hubs. The digitized data can be pooled and analyzed to support the development of evidence-based clinical practice guideline (CPG) recommendations, systematic reviews (SRs), and health technology assessments (HTAs). The company’s goal is to support efforts of healthcare providers and patients to gain access to important evidence-based knowledge and to improve the health and wellbeing of patients worldwide.
In addition to its technology platform, Doctor Evidence has developed a set of specialty products to harmonize the use of digitized clinical evidence in making informed decisions for the identification, development and application of evidence in patient care. Most recently, DRE has launched the GROWTH initiative—Guideline & Research Organizations Worldwide for Transparency & Harmonization. The GROWTH program is intended to increase the communication between all stakeholders involved in patient care, including patients, for the better application of evidence in healthcare practices. For more information, please visit http://www.growthevidence.com.
Hae Kim, Doctor Evidence, LLC, http://www.doctorevidence.com, 310-451-5011, [email protected]
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