Published On: 10/18/2022

Target RWE and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Announce Research Agreement for Cirrhosis Quality Collaborative

DURHAM, N.C., Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, real world evidence (RWE) leader Target RWE announced a partnership with the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) to support its Cirrhosis Quality Collaborative (CQC), effective immediately. With this new strategic partnership, Target RWE will contribute its deep knowledge of long-term, observational studies, and industry-leading analytics to assist AASLD with its mission to improve the quality of care for patients with liver disease.

The CQC is a multi-site network that combines quality improvement and research to optimize the management and outcomes of patients with cirrhosis. The partnership combines the established CQC network with the strength of Target RWE's data collection and analytics capabilities to advance progress in research and improve the quality of care in patients with liver disease. This will be accomplished by aggregating data generated directly as part of clinical care on thousands of patients from multiple centers across the United States. Participating clinical sites and teams will be networked with AASLD and Target RWE as a part of a longer-term growth initiative under the TARGET-Liver Disease (LD) protocol.

The collaboration provides a dynamic platform that can be scaled for growth and innovation over time with the CQC. As the field continues to evolve, so too will this research initiative. Patients with liver disease will benefit from clinical research and discovery that is meaningful and has the possibility to improve the quality of the care they receive.

"This exciting new agreement advances AASLD's longstanding mission in research and care of patients with cirrhosis by leveraging Target RWE capabilities and experience with real world data cohorts, data curation, and evidence generation," said Laurie D. DeLeve, M.D., Ph.D., FAASLD, and President of AASLD. "The outcomes from this research will help us identify areas of improvement for patient care which can then be used to develop educational content and health system resources to address care gaps in specific areas."

"This partnership with Target RWE provides significant value to the CQC and to the liver community. It provides a platform for ongoing learning, hypothesis generation, and data analysis to support clinical and quality improvement protocols as well as patient-centered research. It can also play a key role in the development of the next generation of hepatologists, engaging them in research using a large and diverse dataset representing patients with all etiologies of liver disease," said CQC Co-Chair, Fasiha Kanwal, M.D., MSHS, FAASLD.

"This partnership will allow us to expand the number of sites, while continuing the automated interface model that permits rapidly enrolling thousands of patients with cirrhosis," said CQC Co-Chair Michael Volk, M.D., MSc, FAASLD. "This will support a much greater contribution to research and quality improvement than can be done with single center studies."

"This innovative collaboration allows for streamlined workflows and comprehensive, high-quality data collection paired with specialized Target RWE analytic methodology to address the challenges of using data from real-world sources. We are thrilled to be able to partner with AASLD to advance understanding in the field of cirrhosis as a part of the CQC," said Michael W. Fried, M.D., FAASLD, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Target RWE, and former president of AASLD.

Target RWE will provide the operational teams to oversee the networked site activities and human ethics committee requirements, all data services supporting cohort building, data curation and provision of datasets, and customized and flexible advanced analytics that can inform a basic understanding of the enrolled populations as well as more complex phenomena. AASLD will work with the networked sites and Target RWE to ensure the research aims and quality initiatives are carried out and to promote evidence-based innovation for patients with liver disease.

Target RWE will be attending The Liver Meeting®, November 4-8 in Washington, DC, booth #617. Follow us on Twitter (@TargetRWE) and LinkedIn to keep up with the latest news!