Target RWE Creates 35 New Disease Registries

Target RWE, a Durham-based clinical analytics company, has launched 35 new observational disease-state registries to support decision-making in health care.

The registries, covering autoimmune, neurologic, metabolic, kidney and gastroenterologic diseases, will collect direct patient experiences through digital surveys as well as whole blood, plasma, serum and tissue samples as part of Target RWE's biorepository.

The biorepository allows Target RWE to combine extensive biomarker research, translational research and genomic data with its established research communities. To date, the company has secured more than 150,000 biospecimen samples across all its disease communities, with a milestone of more than 10,000 tissue samples reached for its dermatology registry.

“We are thrilled to launch an impressive number of new disease-state registries today, and we look forward to continuing to produce fit-for-purpose data that address diseases that pose a significant public health burden,” said Michael W. Fried, M.D., FAASLD, co-founder and chief medical officer of Target RWE.

The new autoimmune registry is an outgrowth of the company's well-established dermatology community and encompasses an extensive portfolio of immune-mediated inflammatory conditions such as lupus, Sjögren's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

The neurologic and metabolic registries capture patient data in diseases with high unmet needs such Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, obesity, Cushing's disease, diabetes and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

The company also has expanded its existing liver registry.

Target RWE’s analytics extracts insights from real-world patient data to answer important questions in healthcare for clients in the pharmaceutical, life sciences and healthcare sectors.

“Target RWE technology provides more robust, meaningful and actionable real-world data that results in improved quality and operating efficiencies,” said Vivian Doelling, Ph.D., vice president of investments who leads the Emerging Company Development team at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. “As such, it is not surprising that this approach has rapidly expanded to so many new and diverse disease-state registries.”

The company’s regulatory-grade data have been used to support new drug development and label expansion opportunities, address regulatory demands, assess decision-making processes for research and development strategies such as sales, marketing, and pricing, and fulfill post-marketing drug safety requirements in the United States and Europe.

Target RWE’s approach is to cultivate communities of key opinion leaders, patients and healthcare stakeholders for each disease area. Its datasets are aggregated from various data sources including registries, electronic medical records, patient outcomes measures, biospecimen analyses, and claims databases. 

“When bringing advanced analytics together with real-world data, it is imperative to be able to look across communities to draw strong conclusions,” Fried said. “For example, many autoimmune diseases are found to be connected to other inflammatory conditions such as atopic dermatitis and alopecia areata. Meaningful real-world research considers all of these complexities.”

Target RWE, founded in 2015, was previously known as Target PharmaSolutions but was renamed in August 2020 to reflect its focus on real-world evidence (RWE). The North Carolina Biotechnology Center helped the company establish its footing with a $500,000 Strategic Growth Loan in 2016.