Data in Innovating Cancer Care Is Focus of Research Symposium and Best Poster Podium Presentation

Leading oncology experts gathered recently at the AMCP Foundation's 9th Annual Research Symposium to discuss opportunities and challenges on how data can best be used to improve cancer care.

The event, held Oct. 29 in conjunction with AMCP Nexus 2019, included presentations on a wide range of topics, from new uses of data in drug development to enhancing the patient experience. The symposium also featured an AMCP Foundation Best Poster Award recognizing a senior investigator with the most outstanding abstract related to cancer and data. The podium presentation was in partnership with CVS Health and JMCP. Accepting the award was Stacey DeCosta Byfield, PhD, MPH, Director of Research, UnitedHealth Group Research and Development.

"The Foundation has a long history of presenting provocative viewpoints and insights into the crucial challenges facing health care today," said AMCP Foundation Executive Director Paula J. Eichenbrenner, MBA, CAE. "This event was no exception."

“Our central commitment is to facilitate innovative research about the evolving health care environment,” Eichenbrenner noted. “It is especially timely that we convene around cancer care, with 1.73 million new diagnoses annually in this country, a persistently high mortality rate, and nearly $150 billion in health care expenditures related to oncology.”

A key theme running through the presentations was the increasing need for more effective data to improve decision-making and develop innovative patient care models that enhance outcomes.

The half-day symposium included presentations on expedited drug approvals leading to innovative and curative therapies; the use of real-world endpoints in cancer drug development; the importance of collecting patient-experience data, including cost of care, treatment research and survivorship experiences; novel and collaborative approaches in oncology using real-world data; the use of artificial intelligence; and revolutionizing health care by individualizing patient care.

Funding support for the symposium was provided by Amgen, Merck, Inc. and Pfizer, Inc.

The event also recognized authors of the “best poster abstract” related to the symposium’s theme.

Karen L. Rascati, RPh, PhD, Assistant Editor of AMCP’s Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy (JMCP), along with Michelle Chang, Clinical Director, CVS Health, presented the winning poster, “Evaluation of Treatment Patterns and Outcomes from Linked Claims plus Clinical Prior Authorization Data in Patients Diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC).” Accepting the award was Stacey DeCosta Byfield, PhD, MPH, Director of Research, UnitedHealth Group Research and Development. Authors were Dacosta Byfield, Benjamin Chastek, MS; Lincy Lal, PhD, PharmD; and Stephanie Korrer.

The study showed how integration of clinical and claims data allows for the examination of outcomes and characteristics that are not generally available in a single database. Such integration is essential for real world evidence generation, it noted. “We describe utilization of an oncology clinical data program integrated with claims data to describe treatment patterns and outcomes,” according to the abstract.

As treatment lines progress, duration and costs increase by 20% and 12% respectively. The combination of clinical and claims based data points are valuable to evaluate treatment outcomes in specific personalized sub cohorts of patients and maybe one day used for treatment selection at individual lines of therapy, the study concluded.

A summary of the symposium’s 11 presentations will be posted on the Foundation’s website in December. Key highlights of the presentations will be featured in webinar on Jan. 16, 2020, and an executive summary of the symposium will be included in a future issue of JMCP. Read the symposium agenda and program, including speaker previews of their presentations.