Ontada collaborates with Datavant to advance access to real-world oncology insights

Ontada® is partnering with Datavant to integrate real-world data (RWD) from community oncology care, streamlining life sciences access to insights and accelerating advancements in cancer treatment.

Ontada®, a McKesson business specializing in oncology data and point-of-care technologies, has announced a strategic collaboration with health data platform Datavant. This partnership aims to streamline life sciences companies’ access to Ontada’s RWD, enabling more efficient insights into oncology care and supporting the development of advanced cancer treatments.

A core component of Ontada’s RWD is data sourced from The US Oncology Network (The Network), a leading organization of independent, community-based oncology practices. The Network treats one in five cancer patients in the US and provides data on more than 2.4 million patients across over 80 tumor types. This extensive dataset allows Ontada to deliver comprehensive insights across the patient journey, offering a unique view into community-based cancer care.

Through this collaboration, Ontada will integrate The Network’s oncology data into Datavant’s health data ecosystem. With Datavant’s secure, tokenized data-sharing features, life sciences organizations gain streamlined access to Ontada’s RWD, reducing the time required to gather essential insights. This enables efficient analysis of treatment trends and patient outcomes across diverse community settings, which account for approximately 85% of cancer care locations in the US.

Amy O’Sullivan, Ontada’s Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer, highlighted the growing significance of RWD in oncology, noting,

"As the importance of RWD in oncology continues to grow and the volume of data continues to increase, evaluating new data sources can be time-consuming. Our life sciences partners need a quick way to identify data sources that will meet their needs and support their efforts to transform cancer treatment. Through our collaboration with Datavant, we're enabling acceleration of fit-for-purpose data identification and time to insights, whether they be for generating real-world evidence, shaping commercial strategies, or developing new drugs."

The partnership with Datavant builds on Ontada’s recent collaboration with Microsoft, where AI is used to transform unstructured healthcare data into actionable insights. Together, these initiatives strengthen Ontada’s ability to provide meaningful data for oncology research, giving life sciences companies essential tools to support oncology innovation and improve patient outcomes.

Arnaub Chatterjee, President and GM of Life Sciences, Ecosystem, and Public Sector at Datavant, underscored the urgency of this mission, stating,

“Anyone who has been impacted by cancer knows that access to new treatments cannot happen fast enough. We look forward to leveraging the breadth of the Datavant RWD ecosystem alongside Ontada’s community-level insights to power oncology health economics and outcomes research – and to support all who are working to bring the next generation of life-altering oncology therapies to patients sooner.”