What You Should Know: 

– Flatiron Health, a provider of real-world data (RWD) for cancer care, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®), an alliance of top cancer centers, have announced a renewal of their long-standing collaboration. 

– This decade-long partnership, dating back to 2014, focuses on leveraging RWD to improve cancer care and research.

The Power of Real-World Data in Cancer Care

Real-world data offers a valuable window into the realities of cancer care beyond clinical trials. By analyzing data from real-world settings, researchers and healthcare providers can gain a deeper understanding of treatment effectiveness, identify potential disparities in care, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

Collaboration for Better Cancer Care with RWD

The renewed collaboration signifies a continued commitment to leveraging RWD for positive impact. This will involve several key initiatives:

• Expanding Real-World Data Research: Flatiron and NCCN will work together to enable further research using RWD. This research will provide valuable insights into real-world treatment patterns and patient outcomes.
• Improving Cancer Care Nationwide: Cancer centers across the country will benefit from access to Flatiron’s high-quality, curated datasets. This data can be used to benchmark performance, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately deliver better care for patients.
• Enhancing Quality of Care: Flatiron and NCCN will continue collaborating on quality improvement initiatives for NCCN Member Institutions. This includes developing new metrics and benchmarks to assess and measure the quality of care provided.

“We strive to ensure that everyone, everywhere, is able to access high-quality cancer care based on the latest evidence and expert consensus,” said Crystal S. Denlinger, MD, Chief Executive Officer, NCCN. “This ongoing collaboration with Flatiron will help us leverage data in pursuit of that goal. We are happy to renew our commitment to work together to help people with cancer live better lives.”

What You Should Know:

– The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center and Flatiron Health, a leading oncology-focused healthtech company, today announced a collaboration to bring Flatiron Assist™ to MUSC’s oncology care clinicians.

– The strategic collaboration equips clinicians at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center with Flatiron Assist, a unique clinical decision support platform designed specifically for oncology.  Flatiron Assist prioritizes the latest evidence-based medicine, promotes adherence to site-preferred treatment pathways, and streamlines access to relevant clinical trials – all readily available at the point of care.

Integration with Existing Systems for Seamless Workflow

Through Flatiron’s integration with MUSC’s existing Epic electronic health record system, Flatiron Assist seamlessly integrates into existing workflows. Clinicians can leverage the platform to:

• Identify and promote site-preferred treatment pathways – These pathways represent the center’s most effective treatment approaches for various cancers.
• Gain real-time access to open clinical trials – Patients can be efficiently matched to potentially life-saving research opportunities.
• Ensure adherence to NCCN Guidelines – Flatiron Assist integrates seamlessly with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®), promoting standardized and high-quality care.

“Partnering with the Medical University of South Carolina’s Hollings Cancer Center, a market-leading cancer care provider, is an incredible opportunity to accelerate our shared vision for the delivery of more standardized, efficient, and effective cancer care.” said James Hamrick, MD, Vice President of Clinical Oncology at Flatiron Health. “Flatiron Assist, tailor made for oncology, offers a clinical decision support platform that places emphasis on the latest evidence based medicine, aiming to reduce care variation while increasing access to clinical trials and novel therapies, ensuring patients at MUSC and beyond receive the highest quality of care.”

What You Should Know:

• Flatiron Health today announced its renewed collaboration with the Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) of FDA to jointly develop and implement specific research projects to advance the use of Real World Data (RWD) and explore the potential strengths and limitations of using Real World Evidence (RWE) for regulatory purposes.
• The partnership will specifically evaluate RWD study designs and analytic methods through the collaborative development of priority, clinically meaningful research questions regarding care, treatment, and outcomes of patients with cancer.

New Collaboration to Broaden Horizon for Clinically Meaningful Medical Research 

“Flatiron is honored to further our collaboration with FDA,” said Javier Jimenez, Chief Medical Officer, Flatiron Health. “Flatiron and FDA will collaborate to explore the potential strengths and limitations of using real-world evidence through investigations of a broad set of research questions regarding the care and clinical outcomes of patients diagnosed with solid tumors and hematological malignancies.”

Further, projects under this collaboration will explore approaches to define and assess fit-for-purpose relevant data on treatment exposure, patient outcomes, and covariates required to answer specific questions of interest. As part of the research process, Flatiron’s datasets will be analyzed to explore fit for purpose RWD, create real-world study protocols using best pharmacoepidemiology practices, and conduct observational studies. Additionally, the collaboration will enable Flatiron to provide FDA access to their  datasets/platform, and highlight their suite of services, including cutting-edge analytics, scientific expertise, and strategic consulting.

What You Should Know:

• Flatiron Health announced a new partnership today with Sanofi in their pursuit to redesign the clinical trial experience for sponsors, sites, and patients in the therapeutic area of oncology. 
• The multi-study partnership between Sanofi and Flatiron will focus on improving clinical trial data acquisition, delivery, and quality through site-facing technology that digitally transfers data captured in the electronic health record (EHR) directly into the electronic data capture (EDC) system through Flatiron Health’s EHR-to-EDC product, Flatiron Clinical Pipe™.

Improving Research Quality Via EHRs

Flatiron Health is a healthtech company expanding the possibilities for point-of-care solutions in oncology and using data for good to power smarter care for every person with cancer. By focusing on the area of oncology, this partnership intends to accelerate development of new treatments and help more people with cancer. The collaboration will make it easier for sites to participate in oncology trials by reducing redundant, manual and often error-prone data entry processes, including taxing local lab management. This novel approach will be used across a portfolio of trials and a broad network of research sites – including both Academic and Community cancer centers. 

The initial Sanofi trial using Flatiron’s technology had its first automated data push earlier this month, successfully transferring over 50% of study data1 from the EHR to the EDC. Sanofi and Flatiron will collaborate on data standards and mapping to expand the volume and types of data eligible for automated transfer. Additionally, as a result of deploying Flatiron Clinical Pipe™, Flatiron expects the number of queries to decrease by roughly 50%, adding to efficiency gains for both sites and Sanofi study teams.

“Flatiron’s expansion into the clinical research space is a natural progression for us. With the FDA’s guidance on interoperable technology that allows electronic transmission of relevant EHR data to the EDC system, we knew we had an opportunity with Flatiron Clinical Pipe to unlock the potential of data captured in the EHR, reduce the burden of clinical trials and accelerate research timelines,” says Alex Deyle, General Manager, Clinical Research, Flatiron Health. “We’re incredibly excited to partner with forward-thinkers like Sanofi, who share our aspiration to leverage data and technology to transform clinical research. We look forward to working with the industry to solve a variety of challenges in the clinical research space—for the benefit of sponsors, CROs, sites and ultimately, the patients.”

What You Should Know:

• Florence, an innovator in healthcare enablement software, has launched out of stealth mode after raising $20 million in seed funding.
• The health tech startup’s round was led by Thrive Capital, GV (Google Ventures), and Salesforce Ventures with participation from Vast Ventures, BoxGroup and Atento Capital.

Aspiring to Digitally Streamline Patient Access to Increase Efficiency

Comprised of physicians and engineers from leading health systems and technology companies, the Florence team has created a technology solution that provides a modern consumer experience while reducing operational overhead. The technology drives efficiency for healthcare workers and patients, enabling patients to get care faster while load-balancing in-person and virtual capacity across health systems and clinics. 

“Technology is the most expedient way to address the growing challenges to our overburdened healthcare system across cost, access and labor,” said Aniq Rahman, Florence CEO and Founder. “We cannot continue to add administrative overhead to clinical teams and hope that access and quality will improve. The Florence platform is designed to address the most significant constraint in care, clinical capacity, while building consumer interfaces that engage patients throughout their journey.”

Florence is developing products across multiple sites of care, starting with emergency departments. Patients benefit from an experience that rivals consumer-focused industries. They can track and accelerate their journey via smartphone, update clinical information, control prescription fulfillment, initiate self-discharge when appropriate, and schedule follow-up appointments. The solution boosts patient satisfaction, increases clinical capacity, and reduces patients leaving without being seen.

Florence is working with leading health systems and most recently launched with Luminis Health in Maryland. 

“As one of the busiest emergency departments in the country, our nurses and administrative staff immediately saw the benefit of Florence,” said Saad Chaudhry, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Luminis Health. “Nurses are saving time and seeing patients faster in our ED. Patients appreciate the streamlined intake process and the transparency provided by being involved, digitally, from the very beginning. I look forward to expanding our partnership with the Florence team to see where else we are able to give back time to both our patients and staff.”

Florence was established in 2021 by CEO and Founder, Aniq Rahman, who previously was president of Moat which Oracle acquired in 2017 for $850 million. The core team includes founders, physicians, and leaders across healthcare, enterprise and consumer technology including from Google, Oracle, Palantir, Flatiron Health, Resy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Penn Medicine.

What You Should Know:

– Caris Life Sciences, the leading molecular science and technology company, announced their partnership with Flatiron Health to fully integrate Caris’ molecular testing portfolio with Flatiron’s OncoEMR®, a cloud-based electronic medical record (EMR) tool.

– This partnership streamlines clinical workflows for physicians, delivering critical results directly at the point of care to help them make better treatment decisions for their patients.   

Molecular Profiling Integration

The Molecular Profiling Integration between OncoEMR and Caris enables data-driven clinical decision-making for over 2,000 clinicians within the Flatiron network, made up of more than 800 unique cancer care locations across the country. Through the Molecular Profiling Integration, users can easily submit Caris orders with fewer clicks and less data entry, track real-time status updates and receive the results directly within OncoEMR. This streamlines clinical workflows for physicians and offers access to Caris molecular reports in the same environment in which they develop care plans. In addition to presenting time-saving benefits within the clinician ordering process, the cloud-based integration is easily enabled–with no associated cost or development work–to any practice in the Flatiron network that wants it.

Caris’ entire suite of molecular profile services, including comprehensive whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing, is now available for ordering within the OncoEMR network. Caris is the first and only partner with whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing capabilities to integrate with Flatiron’s OncoEMR and plans to continue collaborating with EMR/EHR systems across both academic and community oncology spaces on new ways to integrate genomic results into patient care and education. 

What You Should Know: 

– Today,  Canopy announced it is launching out of stealth with $13 million in funding to work with leading oncology practices all over the country to help deliver high-quality care to cancer patients when they aren’t in the doctor’s office.

– Canopy works with leading oncology practices nationwide to drive the best possible outcomes for over 50,000 cancer patients.

Canopy, a Palo Alto, CA-based Intelligent Care Platform (ICP) for oncology, today announced it has raised $13 million in funding led by GSR Ventures, with participation from Samsung Next, UpWest, and other industry leaders and executives, such as Geoff Calkins (former SVP Product, Flatiron Health), and Chris Mansi (CEO Of Viz.AI). Formerly known as Expain, Canopy is also launching out of stealth today to make its platform generally available to cancer treatment centers across the U.S. 

Intelligent Care Platform for Oncology

Kwiatkowsky founded Canopy in 2018 after a personal encounter with the healthcare system highlighted the challenges created by today’s episodic care, particularly in complex disease areas such as oncology. Through the process, he realized that care teams are inundated with information, tasks, and challenges, limiting their ability to adopt important technologies to improve care. That experience led to Canopy’s key insight: “in order to help patients, you need to help the practice first.” Prior to founding Canopy, he spent the past 16 years of his career in an elite Israeli intelligence unit, and later in Israeli startups, leading large-scale projects relating to data processing, AI, and machine learning. 

Due to the brief and episodic nature of office-based cancer care, up to 50 percent of patient symptoms and treatment side-effects will go undetected. This often leads to avoidable hospital visits and a poor experience, and more importantly, may result in detrimental treatment discontinuations, hurting patients’ survival probability. This has been exacerbated during the pandemic as oncologists have relied on spreadsheets, phone calls, and other manual processes that are inefficient, costly, and unsustainable. Studies show that remote monitoring of patients receiving cancer treatment leads to improved quality of life, satisfaction, and overall survival, but providers lack the tools to deliver remote and proactive care. 

Canopy flips that model on its head by enabling physicians to interact with their patients continuously and proactively. Canopy’s Intelligent Care Platform includes a full suite of intelligent, electronic health-record integrated tools to help cancer centers continuously engage with their patients, streamline clinical workflows, and capture new reimbursement streams for their meaningful work. As a result, care teams can better direct resources from repetitive manual work to supporting the patients who need them most, leading to improved patient outcomes at lower costs. 

Improve patient experience and outcomes while optimizing for practice success 

Working with leading oncology practices nationwide, Canopy’s platform has demonstrated high rates of patient enrollment (86 percent), engagement (88 percent), retention (90 percent at 6 months), and timely nursing intervention rates (88 percent). Canopy has clinical results slated for publication in 2022 demonstrating reductions in emergency department utilization and inpatient admissions, as well as increases in time on therapy. 

Canopy is the preferred vendor for the Quality Cancer Care Alliance (QCCA) and works with leading oncology practices across the country, including Highlands Oncology Group, Cancer Specialists of North Florida, Northwest Medical Specialties, Los Angeles Cancer Network, Cancer and Hematology Centers of Western Michigan, and Tennessee Cancer Specialists (TCS). 

“Canopy’s mission is to provide every person undergoing cancer treatment with the best possible outcomes and experience,” said Lavi Kwiatkowsky, founder and CEO of Canopy. “We have already demonstrated in cancer treatment centers across the US that a proactive care delivery model is not only possible but effective. Now, we are focused on expanding our presence nationwide while increasingly deploying artificial intelligence to maximize the benefits we deliver to patients and their care teams.” 

What You Should Know:

– Today House Rx, a health technology platform that empowers oncology and rheumatology physician practices with medically integrated dispensing, announced they’ve secured $30 million in financing.

– Founded by two former Flatiron Health executives, Ogi Kavazovic and Tesh Khullar the company has partnered with four medical practices and 30 prescribers since March 2021.

House Rx, a health technology platform focused on improving affordability and patient access to specialty medications, today announced it has secured $25M in Series A financing led by Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing total funding to $30 million.

Medically Integrated Dispensing: A Remedy for Patients and Providers

House Rx’s technology platform and pharmacy service enable specialty practices to offer medically-integrated dispensing, which means patients can receive both their physician and pharmacy care from one team, collaborating on a unified technology platform. Since it launched in March 2021, House Rx has partnered with four medical specialty practices and 30 prescribers in California and Washington.

Unlike infused therapies which are administered in the clinics, the burden of specialty medication access and adherence often falls on patients, who typically need to battle several large bureaucracies to gain access to their medications. These often lead to multi-week delays in treatment and much lower adherence rates compared to medications administered in clinics.

Impact of Medically-Integrated Specialty Medications

Currently, specialty medications are mainly dispensed via mail by a patient’s insurance company, not their doctor or a pharmacy a patient chooses. A growing body of research demonstrates that when patients obtain timely access to cancer treatments directly from their care team, they have better outcomes, including improved quality of life and increased survivability. To date, House Rx currently has over 30 employees, who are mostly software engineers and pharmacy operations The funding from this latest round will go towards continued investments in House Rx’s technology platform and scaling pharmacy operations.

House Rx’s technology platform helps prescribers and pharmacists collaborate more effectively via one integrated system. Built based on in-depth feedback from pharmacists and physicians, the platform is designed specifically for the management of specialty medication, and includes built-in analytics to enable continuous improvement in operational efficiency and quality of care.

The specialty medical practices that have already partnered with House Rx include Care Oncology Center, California; Sarcoma Oncology, California; Arthritis Northwest Washington; and Northwest Medical Specialties, Washington.

“The antiquated pharmacy systems developed decades ago inhibit coordinated patient care and increase costs. The current system also prevents patients from choosing where they can get their medically prescribed life-sustaining therapies,” said Tesh Khullar, President and a co-founder. “We started House Rx to make the medically integrated dispensing model the new normal in specialty pharmacy. With the right technology, and the right distribution partners, we can re-establish the partnership between physicians and pharmacists that brings a new level of transparency and patient care.”

What You Should Know:

– Foundation Medicine (FMI) announced today it will begin integrating with Flatiron Health and other electronic medical record (EMR) systems to make it easier for oncologists to order comprehensive genomic tests (CGP), review results, continually access clinical and genomic information and share among their care teams in order to quickly and efficiently develop personalized treatment plans for their patients.

– This integration, the first of a series planned by Flatiron, will support more efficient clinical decision making by allowing electronic ordering, order tracking and receipt of Foundation Medicine’s CGP test results all within the OncoEMR platform.

Why It Matters

With the number of targeted cancer treatments growing exponentially, CGP is often the first step to determine the best treatment options for patients based on the genomic make-up of their cancer. As 95% of all oncology practices use an EMR system, integrating CGP within these medical record systems will streamline a doctor’s ability to order and track these tests, which can then help guide them in making personalized treatment plans for their patients.

The two companies are planning similar integrations with other CGP platforms and EMRs, respectively, in the oncology space, with the goal of helping every patient to realize the benefit of precision cancer care. These workflow-streamlining integrations are being designed by clinical and product experts in partnership with oncology practices.

“With the number of targeted treatments growing exponentially, the opportunity for cancer care transformation has never been greater. Clinicians increasingly rely on genomic insights to guide clinical decision-making, and Foundation Medicine is committed to implementing new solutions that enable widespread access to CGP,” said Kathleen Kaa, Interim Chief Commercial Officer at Foundation Medicine. “The integration of Foundation Medicine tests into OncoEMR, and other leading EMR systems to follow, is just one way we’re improving our offerings to fuel precision medicine for cancer patients. The integrations will create efficiencies for oncology healthcare teams to deliver precision treatment plans based on individual genomic insights to their patients.”

– Vital launches pilot program with Emory Healthcare Innovation Hub for its AI-powered emergency department platform.

– Vital will deploy it’s ED platform in the emergency departments of Emory University Hospital, Emory Johns Creek Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, and Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital.

– The pilot program marks the first partnership out of the Emory Healthcare Innovation Hub.

Vital, an Atlanta, GA-based AI-powered software increasing productivity and improving patient health in hospital emergency room has formed a development partnership with the Emory Healthcare Innovation Hub. As part of the strategic partnership, Emory Healthcare becomes a lead research partner in developing and implementing Vital’s EDIS platform to improve overall efficiency and satisfaction for patients and clinicians across multiple Emory emergency rooms.

Optimize Your ED Flow with Artificial Intelligence

More than 30% of patients are miscategorized during triage. This results in more cost and crowding while decreasing patient satisfaction scores. Co-founded in 2017 by Mint.com creator Aaron Patzer and Justin Schrager, Doctor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University Hospital, Vital’s HIPAA compliant cloud-based platform sits on top of any existing electronic health record system (EHR) using artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to triage patients before they see a doctor, making it easier and faster for providers to coordinate care and prioritize patients with fast, reliable, and incredibly user-friendly system.

Vital predicts a patient’s probability of admission based on age, chief complaint, lab results, and free-text notes. This begins the moment a patient registers and adjusts instantly when new data is available. This means the whole ED – doctors, nurses, and techs, as well as the hospitalists, house supervisors, and administrators – can start to plan hours in advance of admission.

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Pilot Marks First Partnership Out Of The Emory Healthcare Innovation Hub

Vital’s software is the first partnership out of the Emory University Innovation Hub, designed to identify unmet patient needs and find innovative solutions to put the patient at the center of care delivery. Vital’s live track board and real-time predictions of patients are being developed in the Emergency Departments of Emory University Hospital, Emory Johns Creek Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, and Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital.

The goal of this pilot program is to measurably reduce wait times and overall length of stay for patients, while increasing patient satisfaction. Clinicians will be able to review lab results on the go with their mobile or tablet, collaborate with others when writing notes, and easily search through prior notes and results.

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Why It Matters

“We are overjoyed to have Emory Healthcare as our primary development partner and pilot sites,” says Patzer. “We are impressed with the commitment Emory leadership has made towards technological innovation and tackling truly challenging problems in emergency medicine. Working closely with top emergency physicians and nurses is essential to producing software that meets the needs of clinicians.”

“The combination of a top-tier academic healthcare system and a top-notch software team is something that happens too rarely in healthcare. With the launch of our Innovation Hub last year, we hope this is one of many opportunities to not only be the first to take advantage of a new technology, but to aid in its development,” said Scott Boden, MD, vice president of business innovation for Emory Healthcare. “This is exactly the kind of collaboration that should exist between promising startups and cutting-edge health systems.”

Vital, an Atlanta, GA-based AI-powered software increasing productivity and improving patient health in hospital emergency rooms has raised $5.2M led by First Round Capital and Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ Venture). The seed round also includes participation from Bragiel Brothers, Meridian Street Capital, Refactor Capital, and SV Angel, with angel investment from Vivek Garipalli, CEO of CloverHealth; and Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, founders of Flatiron Health. Josh Kopelman, founder, and partner at First Round Capital will join Vital’s board of directors.

Mint.com Founder Launches Vital to Improve Patient Health in Hospital Emergency Rooms

Vital founder and CEO Aaron Patzer brings capital, confidence and credibility to Vital from his success with Mint.com, which transformed dense and illegible bank data into an easy consumer product. The decision to take on an even higher-stakes, more regulated industry came after seeing firsthand the antiquated software hospitals use.

Vital’s HIPAA compliant cloud-based platform sits on top of any existing electronic health record system (EHR) using artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to triage patients before they see a doctor, making it easier and faster for providers to coordinate care and prioritize patients with a fast, reliable, and incredibly user-friendly system.

Results from Peer-Reviewed Academic Study

Teaming up with Justin Schrager, Doctor of Emergency Medicine at Emory University Hospital, Patzer invested a million dollars and two years of peer-reviewed academic study that compared logistic regression and neural network modeling strategies to predict hospital admission or transfer following initial presentation to the Emergency Department (ED) triage with and without the addition of natural language processing elements.

Of the 47,200 ED visits from 642 hospitals, 6,335 (13.42%) resulted in hospital admission (or transfer). A total of 48 principal components were extracted by NLP from the reason for visit fields, which explained 75% of the overall variance for hospitalization. The study reveals the predictive accuracy of hospital admission or transfer for patients who presented to ED triage overall was good and was improved with the inclusion of free text data from a patient’s reason for visit regardless of the modeling approach. Natural language processing and neural networks that incorporate patient-reported outcome-free text may increase predictive accuracy for the hospital admission.

Plans for Funding

Vital used the results from the peer-reviewed study and technical research and development to create Vital, now ready to roll out to the benefit of patients, providers and hospitals. The company plans to use the funding to help grow the Vital team of engineers and data scientists, and to bring its secure, cloud-based software to emergency rooms across the United States

“The HITECH Act was well-intentioned, but now hospitals rely on outdated, slow, and inefficient software – and nowhere is it more painful than in the emergency room,” says Vital founder and CEO Aaron Patzer. “Doctors and nurses often put more time into paperwork and data entry than patient care. Vital uses smart, easy tech to reverse that, cutting wait times in half, reducing provider burnout and saving hospitals millions of dollars.”

Roche has reached an agreement to acquire Flatiron Health, a NYC-based oncology EHR startup focused on accelerating cancer research and improving patient care for $1.9B. Under terms of the acquisition, Flatiron Health will continue its current business model, network of partnerships and overall objectives. The integrity of segregated patient protected health information will be preserved, as will dedicated sales and marketing, provider-facing and life science business activities. In addition, the integrity of segregated patient protected health information will be preserved, as will dedicated sales and marketing, provider-facing and life science business activities.

The acquisition will bring together two companies committed to improving the lives of cancer patients through the evolving field of healthcare data and analytics.

With its large network of community oncology practices and academic medical centers across the US, Flatiron Health has created a technology platform designed to learn from the experience of every patient. Together, the companies will leverage their combined expertise to advance the use of real-world evidence to set new industry standards for oncology research and development. Currently, Flatiron partners with over 265 community cancer clinics, six major academic research centers and 14 out of the top 15 therapeutic oncology companies. 

“This is an important step in our personalized healthcare strategy for Roche, as we believe that regulatory-grade real-world evidence is a key ingredient to accelerate the development of, and access to, new cancer treatments. As a leading technology company in oncology, Flatiron Health is best positioned to provide the technology and data analytics infrastructure needed not only for Roche, but for oncology research and development efforts across the entire industry. A key principle of this is to preserve Flatiron’s autonomy and their ability to continue providing their services to all existing and future partners,” said Daniel O’Day, CEO Roche Pharmaceuticals in a statement.

Flatiron Health and the FDA have teamed up on a new research collaboration agreement to determine how real-world evidence derived from de-identified, HIPAA-compliant patient data captured outside of clinical trials can provide new insights into the safety and effectiveness of emerging anti-cancer therapies such as immunotherapeutic agents.

Research Initiative Details

As part of this research initiative, Flatiron Health and the FDA are collaborating on a project to investigate the use of immunotherapies in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC). Flatiron Health and the FDA will use this project to explore analytic approaches, clinically-relevant endpoints and safety assessment methods using real-world evidence.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, with more than 220,000 new cases and approximately 160,000 deaths in 2015.1 In recent years, immunotherapy – a novel class of therapies that leverage the body’s own immune system to help fight cancer – has emerged as a promising approach in the treatment of aNSCLC.

Under the research collaboration, Flatiron Health and the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) within the FDA will systematically explore the characteristics and treatment patterns of patients with aNSCLC who are receiving immunotherapy to better understand real-world treatment patterns and formulate further regulatory science hypotheses.

“With only four percent of the adult U.S. cancer population enrolled in clinical trials, we as providers are currently limited to making clinical decisions based upon study results that represent only a small number of patients. This makes it nearly impossible to estimate whether a treatment will work, anticipate all of the potential side effects of therapies or even decide which treatment should precede another,” said Amy Abernethy, chief medical officer and senior vice president, Oncology, Flatiron Health in the press announcement. “Collaborative projects such as this one with the FDA allow us to access real-world evidence for more accurate and actionable insights into patient care and expected outcomes outside of clinical trials, supporting the delivery of high quality patient care.”

Cloud-based oncology software provider Flatiron Health has raised $175M in Series C funding led by Roche with participation from Allen & Company, Baillie Gifford and Casdin Capital. Founded in 2012, the NYC-based company organizes the world’s oncology information and makes it useful for patients, physicians, life science companies and researchers. 

The company plans to utilize the capital to further invest in its cloud-based OncologyCloud software platform, which includes OncoAnalytics^®, a first-of-its-kind advanced analytics tool, and OncoEMR^Ⓡ, the industry-leading electronic health record for oncology with an integrated patient portal and claims system.

Accelerating Personalized Medicine with Roche

As part of the funding announcement, Flatiron Health will enter into a multi-year, non-exclusive agreement with biotech provider Roche to purchase a number of Flatiron Health’s life science offerings. The companies will also collaborate to accelerate clinical trials, advance personalized medicine and enhance patient care.

Lastly, Flatiron Health will continue investing in its unique offerings for life science companies. In 2016, the company plans to accelerate its partnerships with life sciences companies to provide products that can be used to gain an unprecedented understanding of cancer care, support healthcare decision-making and improve patient outcomes.

Over the coming years, these investments will include:

– The next generation of OncoEMR, which will feature the company’s most significant enhancements to date across workflow optimization, infrastructure and design to transform the delivery of patient care and empower providers to succeed in an evolving landscape.

– New additions to the company’s value-based care solutions portfolio, designed to enable providers to participate in initiatives such as the Oncology Care Model (OCM) and other alternative payment models. Currently, the company offers a comprehensive solution across integrated treatment pathways and content, automated quality measures, patient engagement and alternative payment model design. Later this year, the company will release tools and services to further support providers focused on clinical transformation.

– Additional enhancements and features across OncoAnalytics, OncoBilling^® practice management solution and SeeYourChart^® patient portal to help cancer care providers maximize efficiency, identify revenue opportunities and better engage with patients.

“As the oncology landscape continues to evolve, it will be increasingly important for cancer care providers to partner with a technology company that brings a fresh and innovative approach to solving today’s challenges,” said Robert J. Green, MD, vice president, Clinical Strategy and senior medical director, Flatiron Health. “Our new funding will enable us to continue heavily investing in the OncologyCloud software platform and other critical initiatives spanning value-based care and clinical research to position Flatiron Health as a different type of oncology partner – one that can empower providers, both now and long-term.”