Research collaboration between Roche, the University Hospital Zurich and the University of Zurich to explore the value of data sharing for oncology patients

• The collaboration investigates how Real World Data (RWD) can be shared and integrated into routine clinical practice.
• The goal is to learn how oncology patients in Switzerland may benefit from a comparison with larger and more personalized datasets in the clinical setting.
• The collaboration is in line with Roche's goal to demonstrate that data collected in routine care can be shared and utilized within the Swiss health data ecosystem
  
  

Basel, 23 January 2024 - Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) today announced that a research collaboration agreement has been signed between Roche, the University Hospital Zurich (USZ), and the University of Zurich (UZH) to investigate how Real World Data (RWD) can be shared and ultimately be integrated into routine clinical practice.

So-called real world data (RWD) - such as data from structured electronic health records with information on cancer types, molecular profiles, treatments and outcomes - can provide important cornerstones for treatment decisions. However, as this data is rarely available in a scaled and structured form, its potential often remains unrealised and is rarely used in treatment decisions. The aim of the project is to find out how RWD can be structured and transformed into useful reports that lead to improved, data-driven decision-making and ultimately have a positive impact on patient care.

The public-private partnership of USZ, UZH and Roche is called Precision Oncology Programme (POP) and is being jointly developed and co-funded by the parties. The programme has been approved by the ethics commission of the canton of Zürich and first patients have started to be enrolled. Initial results are expected by end-2024.

“This partnership shows the innovative potential of public-private partnerships to better utilise existing data from everyday treatment in a trustful and transparent manner. We are confident that it will generate meaningful insights not only to the project partners and patients involved, but to the Swiss healthcare system overall”, comments Dr. med. Katharina Gasser, General Manager of Roche Pharma Switzerland.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Wicki, Director of the Clinical Program of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Zurich, adds: “Cancer is a very heterogeneous disease. This limits generalizability of data from controlled trials. The structured and broad-based recording of RWD, as in the Precision Oncology Programme, may help to treat patients better in the long term because we have more information about very specific clinical situations. RWD could thus become an important source of information supporting treatment decisions in cancer care in the future. I’m happy that we found in Roche a valuable partner to explore this path further.”

The goal for the project partners is to learn how oncology care in Switzerland may benefit from easier access, integration, and sharing of larger and more personalised datasets in the clinical setting. In this collaboration, pseudonymized demographic, clinical and genomic data from individual patients at the USZ will be compared with other available data sets, including the Flatiron-FMI Clinico-Genomic Database licensed by Roche. These sets describe for example, how other similar patients were treated and what their outcome was. The corresponding reports will then be shared with the USZ. All care recommendations will remain under the close supervision of the Molecular Tumour Board (MTB) of the USZ, and the ultimate treatment decisions will remain with the treating physician and the patient. An MTB is an interdisciplinary team that jointly discusses the best treatment options for individual patients, including information on the molecular tumour profile.

Roche and the use of Real World Data
Roche's goal is to create a health data ecosystem in which RWD can be trustfully, transparently and lawfully exchanged. Such an ecosystem would then support the generation and use of routine clinical data to provide insights enabling personalized decision-making for better patient care. With access to anonymized patient-level data, Roche can improve and accelerate the understanding of how to gain insights and increase patient benefit through secondary data use.

About Real World Data
In the context of healthcare, real world data (RWD) denotes data relating to patient health status and/or the delivery of health care routinely collected from a variety of sources. This contrasts with data generated by conventional interventional clinical trials and studies in dedicated research environments. RWD is seen as a potentially rich and underutilised source for diagnostic systems, data-driven services and other products that influence treatment decisions and therefore patient outcomes under real-world conditions.

Systematic measurement of treatment outcomes combined with digital tools and data analytics, including artificial intelligence and other decision support systems, will enable a cycle of continuous learning in healthcare organisations, where results are regularly analysed and shared with medical decision makers. Applied on a larger scale, this will lead to ‘Learning Healthcare Systems’ where quality improvement, outcomes research and dissemination of best practices can take place at a faster pace than today. Health data ecosystems that generate robust RWD provide insight into effectiveness and cost efficiencies in treatment, enabling decisions that prioritise patient outcomes and reduce waste of resources.

About Roche
Founded in 1896 in Basel, Switzerland, as one of the first industrial manufacturers of branded medicines, Roche has grown into the world’s largest biotechnology company and the global leader in in-vitro diagnostics. The company pursues scientific excellence to discover and develop medicines and diagnostics for improving and saving the lives of people around the world. We are a pioneer in personalised healthcare and want to further transform how healthcare is delivered to have an even greater impact. To provide the best care for each person we partner with many stakeholders and combine our strengths in Diagnostics and Pharma with data insights from the clinical practice.

In recognising our endeavour to pursue a long-term perspective in all we do, Roche has been named one of the most sustainable companies in the pharmaceuticals industry by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for the fifteenth consecutive year. This distinction also reflects our efforts to improve access to healthcare together with local partners in every country we work.

Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan.

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