Currently, the necessary measures to safeguard patients makes the process of collecting experimental data slow, expensive if not entirely impractical or unethical under specific circumstances. This is especially true in paediatrics and pregnancy where a large part of studies fails to collect enough subjects to derive reliable evidence, thus preventing children and pregnant women from getting the best medical treatment. The slow pace of drug development for paediatrics and pregnancy is a longterm problem impacting on equitable and safe provision of healthcare for these populations. Despite regulation aiming to address this, an estimated 50-70% of drugs licensed for adults with potential benefits for paediatric use remain untested for children and pregnant people, and therefore off-label. The global effort against COVID-19 exposed the need for faster and more flexible tools in the hands of researchers, regulatory agencies, and policy makers. In response to those needs a strong interest in Digital Health Technology is emerging in the international healthcare landscape. At Penta, we are convinced that empowering healthcare with the full potential of digital technologies will make medicine faster, more personalised and precise.
Digital technology is already at the forefront of our daily lives and data is being generated at an unprecedented rate and volume, healthcare systems being no exception. Patient’s health data is routinely collected from a variety of sources and for a variety of reason. That wealth of data is collectively called real-world data and is already used to generate useful clinical evidence, that in turn is called real-world evidence.
The possibility to supplement classic clinical studies with real-world data will allow for faster, cheaper, and better results. This in turn will make health systems more affordable, more responsive to crises, and will equip clinicians with those muchneeded tools to face future challenges. At Penta we are convinced that the potential of realworld data is only just now being understood. We are ready to be part of this transformation, bringing in the right expertise, new collaborations and novel ideas to generate realworld evidence to support better healthcare for babies, children and mothers.
