Data Science in Drug Development: Evaluate’s Jon Moser on what biopharma learnt about data science in 2020
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What are the biggest R&D productivity challenges facing biopharma today?
I mean I guess one of the major challenges is R ⁇ D productivity. So developing drugs is fraught with risk, with cost and with complexity. And loads of capital is wasted on pursuing the wrong drugs. The crazy thing is that of those drugs that are approved, twenty percent make up ninety percent of the value of the industry. So proving efficacy and safety is just the first part of that journey. On one hand, there are thousands of companies and millions of individuals working in pharma companies entirely focused on making a difference to patients. On helping them to manage or cure conditions which cause morbidity or mortality. This is the vast majority of people in Pharma. I've got the honour of working with many of them.
Welcome to Orbit, the HG podcast series where we speak to leaders and innovators from across the software and tech ecosystem to discuss the key trends that change how we all do business. I'm Amr Laban, head of data and analytics here in the HG Portfolio team, and with me today is John Moser, SVP of Innovation Research and Development at Evaluate, an HG portfolio company focused on the pharmaceutical space. Thanks for joining me, John. Happy to be here, Emma. To start with, why don't you tell us a bit more about yourself, John?
Sure. Well, the first thing to note is I do have the longest title of most people I've met. So at Evaluate, my role is focused on innovation, research, and development, as you might guess. So the first part of that is coming up with the new ideas of what we should be doing as a business, then researching those and turning them into products. So I've been with Evaluate now for about 17 years, working in analyst roles, operations, consulting, and more recently in products.
Sounds like a super cool role to be in. And maybe the place we should have started is why don't you tell us a bit about Evaluate and what it is you do as a business?
Sure. So Evaluate is focused on the biopharma industry and its surrounding ecosystem. Biopharma really means biotech and pharma companies and those who are focused on uh developing drugs to help patients manage and overcome morbidity and mortality. Then it's all the businesses who support them, so the surrounding ecosystem around consulting, financials, supply and distribution. At our heart, we're a data and insights company, so we help our customers and partners make better data-driven decisions, supporting use cases like portfolio optimization, business development, and competitive intelligence. Recently we merged with MMIT and we also acquired Penelgo. So this merger and acquisition is really to help us support our vision of generating evidence and insights faster, or to help patients get access to life-saving therapies.
I guess no surprise, I'm really excited to dive into some of the data and insights. But before we go there, uh just thinking biopharma has been under a lot of scrutiny over the past few years, especially with the advent of COVID.
How does Evaluate help pharma companies make data‑driven decisions?
What are the major challenges facing the industry right now?
UK Could say it has been under a lot of scrutiny. I'm not quite sure where to start, to be honest. I mean, I guess one of the major challenges is RD productivity. So developing drugs is fraught with risk, with cost, and with complexity. And loads of capital is wasted on pursuing the wrong drugs. So one of our products, Evaluate Omnium, tells us that just 12% of drugs entering human trials will go on to reach approval and patience. The average R and D spend for those trials is around 270 million US dollars. And a quick calculation would tell us that across a portfolio of drugs, each approval costs around 2 billion US dollars. The crazy thing is that of those drugs that are approved, twenty percent make up ninety percent of the value of the industry.
So proving efficacy and safety is just the first part of that journey.
Those are some pretty crazy numbers. What comes next?
I mean, more than ever, uh drug makers are coming under scrutiny for pricing, which is largely driven by that eye watering cost of R and D.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What are the biggest R&D productivity challenges facing biopharma today?
0:05–2:47
2
How does Evaluate help pharma companies make data‑driven decisions?
2:47–5:57
3
What impact did COVID‑19 have on drug development speed and collaboration?
5:57–9:39
4
Why are transparency and simple regression models preferred over black‑box AI at Evaluate?
9:39–13:50
5
How does the Evaluate Omnium platform quantify drug‑development risk and return?
13:50–17:57
6
What role do clean, structured data and real‑world evidence play in modern biopharma?
17:57–18:25
Speakers
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