COTA and LCP partner to expand use of US real-world data in UK and EU health technology assessments 

A new collaboration between COTA and LCP Health Analytics will explore how US real-world data (RWD) can support health technology assessments (HTA) in Europe, starting with a focus on multiple myeloma and improving international access to oncology treatments. 

The partnership brings together COTA’s extensive oncology data with LCP’s expertise in HTA evidence generation, aiming to identify US patient cohorts that closely resemble those treated under NHS guidelines. The goal is to evaluate whether these data can address key evidence gaps in UK and EU decision-making and help accelerate access to innovative cancer treatments. 

“By combining UK and US healthcare data and expertise, we can generate evidence to support HTA submissions and hopefully expedite access to new treatments,” said Dr Ben Bray, Partner and Evidence Generation Lead at LCP Health Analytics. 

The initiative aims to overcome longstanding challenges around the use of international RWD for HTA in Europe. While UK regulatory bodies have historically relied on US clinical trial data, they have typically sought country-specific RWD for decision-making, due to concerns around comparability and relevance. This collaboration seeks to bridge that gap by developing methods to identify and evaluate US patient groups that reflect UK treatment populations, enabling broader integration of international datasets into European HTA processes. 

"RWD and AI have expanded what was once possible for cancer treatments, yet fragmentation and regulatory nuances continue to add complexity and confusion", said CK Wang, MD, Chief Medical Officer of COTA. "Our collaboration with LCP Health Analytics will enable regulatory bodies and life sciences organizations to leverage more comprehensive and robust data sets of patient cohorts to accelerate treatment at a global scale.” 

Planned analyses will include characterization of patient demographics and clinical features, treatment patterns, and outcomes such as survival rates. The partnership will also assess whether identified groups can be used in future studies designed to emulate clinical trial populations. 

"The US produces huge quantities of rich healthcare data," said Dr Andrew Thompson, Senior Epidemiologist at LCP Health Analytics. "Exploring ways to use this in the UK context is a key step in generating robust evidence and driving regulatory innovation for the benefit of patients."