Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC (PPD), and its real-world research and market access business, Evidera, have joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Biomedical Innovation’s New Drug Development Paradigms (NEWDIGS) initiative as a strategic partner.

PPD is the first contract research organization to join NEWDIGS, expanding the group’s already large and diverse list of global collaborators, which includes biopharmaceutical manufacturers, care providers, regulators, payers, health authorities, health technology assessment bodies, patient advocacy groups and other health care stakeholders. NEWDIGS provides its members an environment, programs and practices for open, non-competitive collaboration so they can develop solutions for systemwide impediments to biomedical innovation and patient care.

“We are excited to be a NEWDIGS partner because it is a results-focused organization active in many of the same areas in which we have expertise,” said Jon Williams, president of Evidera. “Our relationship with NEWDIGS is an extension of our numerous ongoing innovation efforts in the areas of real-world research, patient-centered research, pragmatic trials and platform studies. This partnership will allow us to broaden our focus, and we will benefit from diverse points of view as we work to positively impact the health care landscape.”

Evidera initially will participate in the new Learning Ecosystems Accelerator for Patient-Centered, Sustainable Innovation (LEAPS) project, in which it will help design and pilot an ecosystem for purpose-driven evidence generation and integration focused on a critical disease area (including both real-world evidence and data from randomized controlled trials). The project aims to create sustainable, commercially viable and scalable tools – including platform trial infrastructure and its extension into community health care settings – to drive more value faster to patients in ways that work for all stakeholders in health care development and delivery.

“We are pleased to welcome PPD and Evidera to the NEWDIGS community of health care innovators,” said Gigi Hirsch, M.D., executive director of NEWDIGS. “In collaboration with the diverse stakeholders already involved, their expertise and capabilities will be important in advancing the design, piloting and scaling of components of the LEAPS innovation ecosystem.”

LEAPS work areas will evolve over time, but may include:

  • Enhancing evidence planning and production across the drug development life span to fuel sustainable patient-centered innovation
  • Applying systems engineering methods and tools to enable seamless, continuous learning and improvement across the innovation value chain (from R&D to care delivery) for a target disease
  • Exploring potential applications of transformative technologies and methods, such as blockchain and artificial intelligence/machine learning

For more information on how NEWDIGS and PPD are working together to advance these areas, please contact Evidera.