CSaP, the Office for Life Sciences and the Department of Health and Social Care brought together policy makers, researchers, and experts from industry and practice in the field to discuss the opportunities and challenges of real world evidence in the context of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy.

At present, there is discussion around the potential value and impact of the insights we might gain through real world data and evidence. It was agreed that real world data, a large amount of which is digitised, has benefits for research such as complimenting data collected in clinical trials, reducing the cost and time burdens of conducting clinical research and evaluating the clinical effectiveness and safety of medicines. However, challenges to fully realising the potential of these data include privacy concerns, building public trust and the need for interoperable databases.

This discussion brought together senior policy makers, researchers, and experts from industry and practice in the field to discuss the opportunities and challenges of real world evidence in the context of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy to support industrial growth. The workshop began with perspectives from invited speakers on current regulatory challenges, the benefits of using real world data to support clinical trials and the wider potential of real world data. The roundtable discussion that followed raised issues such as patient trust, ethics and the technical challenges of accessing and using real world data to generate robust evidence.

A report of the workshop can be downloaded here.