Daniel Lane
Anne Marti
Sanjay Unni
Nicki Kwon
We pair IHD with people who are trained in research fundamentals. By putting together the right data, the right
platform, and the right expertise, you can more quickly find the right way to address a research question.”
Health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), epidemiology, and real-world evidence (RWE) teams are under growing pressure to deliver meaningful insights faster than ever before. As healthcare stakeholders demand stronger evidence of clinical, economic, and humanistic value across the product life cycle, researchers need more than data—they need the right combination of technology, expertise, and fit-for-purpose evidence sources to turn research into impact.
At Panalgo, that combination comes together through Instant Health Data (IHD), NorstellaLinQ, and a team of experienced researchers who help life sciences organizations generate high-quality evidence efficiently and at scale. We spoke with Allison Petrilla, Managing Partner, HEOR Consulting at Norstella—Panalgo’s parent company—about the evolving demands facing HEOR teams, how IHD helps researchers answer more meaningful questions more quickly, and what the future of evidence generation looks like in an era increasingly shaped by AI.
Q: What are HEOR teams solving for, and how does IHD help them demonstrate the value of their treatments throughout the product life cycle?
A: HEOR leaders are responsible for supporting the clinical, economic, and humanistic value story for their assets, whether it be a drug, medical device, diagnostic test, or cell and gene therapy, from early stage development, to pre-launch, to post-launch, through end of exclusivity.
This value story evolves over time and requires many types of evidence, including the clinical trials that establish safety and efficacy, systematic literature reviews to define the current standard of care, dossiers and economic models for HTA submission, and real-world evidence from prospective and retrospective studies to quantify unmet needs or treatment differentiation from a clinical, economic or humanistic perspective. This is all a part of our mission at Norstella—Panalgo’s parent company—to connect the dots from pipeline to patient.
Q: We often say that a measure of success for our RWE studies is to publish the research. While this is important, what’s even more important is the impact of the research. How do we help clients achieve impact quicker without sacrificing methodological rigor?
A: The fundamentals of HEOR research haven’t changed in 25 years. There are basic principles you have to follow to make sure you have a well-defined research question. That hasn’t changed, but we can answer better clinical questions now. One theme from this year’s ISPOR conference was the acceleration of insights. For so many years, it took a long time to do HEOR research so that when the output was produced and published, the study design was well-thought out and reproducible, and important criteria for delivering evidence were being met.
There’s now a movement in HEOR to make this happen faster. A lot of this is being pushed
by technology like AI, and also organizational appetite. If you had said five years ago,
maybe even two years ago, that we need to find a way to deliver this work in half the time, I think anybody who’s been doing this for a long time would say, ‘There’s no way. How are you possibly going to speed things up when humans are still very much involved in the research that we do?’
One way we can address this is to think about how we’re helping clients achieve more impact, faster, by identifying fit-for-purpose data. We have a fantastic analytics platform, IHD, that many HEOR and epidemiology clients use as part of their daily business to generate evidence, and we pair IHD with people who are trained in research fundamentals. By putting together the right data, the right platform, and the right expertise, you can more quickly find the right way to address a research question, the right type of data to support it, what success looks like, and whether it aligns with the client’s business objectives and strategy. We brought these core components together to accelerate impact.
Q: How does pairing IHD with NorstellaLinQ and disciplined, trained researchers deliver high-impact evidence, and why is this so valuable for pharma companies?
A: The IHD platform allows us to use validated measures. For example, when calculating hospitalization, our analysts and the product team can measure those numbers, which allows us to scale more quickly. Bringing these components together helps us stay focused. Our clients are under enormous pressure from the marketplace to drive insights faster than before. They need partners who can support these timelines to quickly develop evidence and pivot as strategy changes.
Q: How do our HEOR services support protocol-driven research from design to publication?
A: For our clients who need end-to-end study support, we’re their strategic partner who can help them think about what the study design should look like, build out the protocol for them, oversee the entire analysis and reporting, partner with them on the interpretation and impact of the research, and work through the scientific communication process with them.
Other clients may just need support with certain tactical pieces such as putting together protocols that their contracted insights-as-a-service analyst may deliver on. Others may need medical communication support. Maybe they have the analysis covered, but they need a strong partner who can help them translate what the research means and drive that impact. We’re flexible in how we support our clients. The HEOR consulting space is very crowded, but our research team together with our data and IHD platform are what differentiate us.
Q: What are your predictions for where HEOR research is headed, particularly in the era of AI?
A: We’re at an interesting point in time in HEOR. There’s a movement to accelerate time to impact, and our clients need partners who can support that. There are still a lot of questions about the role of AI in what has largely been a human-focused discipline, where you have a group of experts who pride themselves in their many years of training and their ability to conduct appropriate, well-designed research studies. Most of us in the HEOR community view AI as something that can help us do our jobs more quickly, more efficiently. For example, it helps us pull together literature and write literature reviews so much faster. We’re spending less time on routine tasks. It’s an exciting time. The HEOR of the past looks very different from what the field will look like in the next few years. And how will we spend our time in HEOR in five years? I don’t think anybody knows.
Want to learn more about how IHD and Ella AI can help you generate insights for HEOR, faster? Contact us.