Aetion, a startup focusing on real-world evidence in healthcare, announced a five-year research collaboration with the FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE). 

The OCE will use Aetion's Evidence Platform to find and analyze sources of real-world data that could be used for research on cancer prevention, clinical care, diagnostics and treatment.

The collaboration will assess real-world endpoints, measure healthcare disparities and evaluate causal inference methods. The research will take place until 2027. 

"We are proud to partner with FDA's Oncology Center of Excellence to conduct crucial research to advance the use of real-world evidence and to help better serve vulnerable and underrepresented populations," Carolyn Magill, CEO of Aetion, said in a statement. "Our collaboration furthers our mission to understand which treatments work for which patients and brings us closer to achieving health equity among cancer patients."

THE LARGER TREND

Since its inception in 2013, the New York-based health tech company has garnered numerous investments. 

In 2021, Aetion scored $110 million in Series C funding, bringing the company's total raise to $212 million. The funding round came less than a year after the company closed its $19 million Series B extension round.   

In 2019, Sanofi merged its real-world data platform with Aetion's Evidence Platform. Sanofi's real-world data platform, DARWIN, provided de-identified patient data that Aetion's Evidence Platform would analyze for insights on drug effectiveness, safety and value. 

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Aetion partnered with healthcare data platform HealthVerity to launch tools to help biopharma companies and regulators find COVID-19 treatments. 

In December, Aetion announced the FDA's Office of Data Analytics and Research extended its contract through 2023, initially signed in 2020, to examine real-world data regarding COVID-19 medical countermeasures. Aetion will expand its work to evaluate data standardization in the context of COVID-19.