What is the innovation?

System and method for extracting real-word evidence data about medicine related behaviour using e-learning and citizen science digital platforms

What problem does the innovation solve?

Real-world evidence (RWE) is the clinical evidence regarding the usage and potential benefits or risks of a medical product. The growing need to achieve better value for healthcare and the shift towards personalised medicine raise the importance of RWE as a component in its full right of the drug or device development and performance assessment and as a decision-making tool. Real word data (RWD) is traditionally collected using protocolled surveys completed by patients. The wide development of social media has opened new avenues to access digital RWD in the massive information provided by patients and their relatives about diseases, treatments, and quality of life. However, it is difficult to extract sound evidences from these highly unstructured data that, by definition, do not follow any protocol. Moreover, the use of bots and AI to extract data about patients may conflict ethics rules and the demand by patients to be involved in the collection and the analysis of RWD.

How does the innovation solve the problem?

Leveraging our citizen science platform gathering 600’000 video gamers performing research tasks, we engage type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients into gamified and protocolled exercises related to the control of their glycemia. The exercises, integrated into a patient community mobile app, are based on the functional insulin therapy (FIT), a diabetes self-management education program aimed at empowering the patient into the management of its insulin treatment. In addition to extending the number of patients who have access to the FIT known to improve the quality of life and to reduce their morbidity, we gather relevant RWD on the insulin management collected and annotated by the patients themselves who follow the protocols given by the app. Our RWD, typically glucose values over time, not only enhance the data literacy of the patients but are also a rich source of information to document the real life experience of T1D patients.

Is there any other existing cutting edge solution? If so, how does yours differ?

The RWE industry is seeking a widening of the RWD by tapping into the massive data provided by the patients in the social media. Applying this approach, specific community platforms have been deployed by actors such as PatientsLikeMe (USA) or Carenity (France, EU). Our solution differs from the simple social media approach: it is designed as a learning patient community tool where the participants are invited to perform protocolled exercises under medical supervision. This innovative device primarily stimulates the engagement of the patient by providing a concrete added value with respect to his health and quality of life while ensuring the high quality of the RWD that are collected in a protocolled framework.

Tell us about your team?

Dr Bernard Revaz is an awarded entrepreneur who co-founded MMOS, a citizen science project integrated in video games, which has been a worldwide success, with 600'000 videogamers performing more than 300 million annotations. He manages several startups and EU projects, with a passion for the digitisation and compliance of the industrial process. Pablo Achard advises the University of Geneva on strategy and supports its implementation and monitoring. He has previously been in charge of the MOOCs of this university and of citizen science modules in videogames and online courses. He holds a PhD in physics and has been a computational neuroscientist for 5 years. Giacomo Gastaldi is a senior consultant in the diabetology division of the Geneva University Hospital where he is clinical lead for T1D management and technology. He is pursuing scientific projects on the influence of induced thermogenesis on glycemic control and the impact of patient education T1D management.

How big is the market for this innovation?

The RWE solutions market is estimated to amount $1.5b in 2021 with a CAGR of 15% over the period 2019-2024. Our solution is aimed at addressing all diseases, in particular those related to the fastest growing applications of the RWE market, i.e. applications for the pharma actors who are particularly concerned to prevent costly drug recalls, assess drug performance in real-world settings and perform post-market surveillance. Our primary objective is to offer to the actors of the RWE industry our high quality data and the access to patient groups trained to follow protocols. We estimate that this market is about half the global RWE market. Moreover, our innovation also contributes to reduce the huge healthcare costs of the chronic diseases (for instance 15% of the global health costs are related to diabetes) by empowering and educating patients, therefore improving the medication compliance and medical process understanding and reducing the risks of hypo- or hyperglycemia events.

What EU-funded research project was this innovation developed in?

Project GAPARS.