Real World Evidence Solutions Market: Growth, Size, Share, and Trends

The rising geriatric population and the subsequent increase in chronic diseases are likely to affect healthcare systems in many countries. The impact of an aging population is even more evident with the growing pressure on government budgets, the decreasing number of healthcare workers in various regions, and the high rates of chronic illnesses. According to the WHO, by 2050, chronic diseases—including cardiovascular conditions, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory illnesses—are expected to cause 86% of the estimated 90 million deaths each year. Older adults are more vulnerable to long-term and complex health issues, so healthcare systems must develop effective, cost-efficient, and personalized treatment strategies. RWE solutions are essential in meeting these challenges by using real-world data to gain insights into treatment outcomes, medication adherence, and patient care pathways outside controlled clinical trial environments. Consequently, the adoption of RWE solutions is on the rise worldwide.

Despite the rapid adoption of real-world evidence across various applications, some stakeholders remain hesitant to rely on real-world studies. Although payers have begun using RWE, they still prefer randomized clinical trials (RCTs) over external observational data for making drug coverage decisions. The primary reason is the existence of multiple standards and methods for analyzing clinical experience evidence. Additionally, the processes and evidence used in pharmaceutical coverage decisions vary significantly among US health plan payers. These differences can influence reimbursement, patient access, and healthcare outcomes during the pharmaceutical technology assessment (PTA) process. Therefore, stakeholders are cautious about using evidence that lacks a standardized data generation procedure.

Emerging economies such as India, China, and Southeast Asian nations are poised to offer numerous growth opportunities for the RWE solutions market during the forecast period. This is mainly due to more relaxed regulatory policies, the rising number of pharmaceutical firms, a large patient population generating substantial RWD, increasing healthcare spending, swiftly advancing healthcare infrastructure, availability of a skilled R&D workforce, and lower clinical trial costs in these regions. In November 2023, JMDC, a prominent Japanese health big data company, partnered with Aetion to improve healthcare outcomes globally. This collaboration focused on leveraging real-world data (RWD) and advanced evidence-generation technology to enhance patient care worldwide.

The absence of universally accepted standards or principles for designing, conducting, analyzing, and reporting RWE poses a significant challenge to this market. This lack of consensus has resulted in RWE often being regarded as insufficiently high quality to contribute to the evidence base used to compare treatment options. As a result, the potential value of the information is diminished, which in turn decreases the motivation to generate it. Additionally, this situation discourages major stakeholders from adopting RWE solutions. Data derived from real-world conditions frequently lack validity and face issues such as inconsistency, concerns about robustness, limited access to data, and insufficient investigator expertise, all of which hinder the development of accurate evidence. Healthcare involves a wide range of public and private data collection systems, including health surveys, administrative enrolment and billing records, and medical records used by hospitals, CHCs, physicians, and health plans.