Chinese biopharma BeiGene teams with real-world evidence data firm Ontada to campaign for better cancer drug access in the US

BeiGene is building up its oncology franchise, and, to help boost awareness of cancer drugs, it is tapping McKesson’s real-world evidence (RWE) business Ontada for a series of new campaigns in the U.S.

This includes leveraging Ontada’s RWE platform to “improve community education on the financial impact and value of cancer drugs,” as well as looking to “improve patient access to oncology medicines,” BeiGene said in a press release.

The exact details of how the Chinese biopharma will do that were not shared, though it said that as part of the collaboration the companies “will optimize the use of RWE” to talk up the value of cancer drugs in general across “key stakeholders,” which includes patients, providers and payers.

Ontada is also on deck to develop what the press release calls “timely education” on emerging science and therapeutic differentiation, i.e., highlight new cancer tech coming out of oncology companies such as BeiGene.

The companies will also look to boost use of RWE in both healthcare and regulatory decision-making to “increase timely and affordable patient access to life-saving oncology therapies.”

In a nutshell, the idea is for the companies to extoll the virtues of cancer drugs and their inherent value—and partly justify their often-high price tags—using RWE while also hoping to boost their use across the market to increase uptake.

In recent years, BeiGene has become a big name in cancer and has an increasing stake in the oncology drug market: It has three approved drugs including BTK inhibitor Brukinsa, which won FDA approval in the U.S. back in 2019, as well as PD-1 antibody tislelizumab and PARP inhibitor pamiparib, which are both approved in China.

On top of that portfolio, the company has a host of pipeline meds and a series of commercial, clinical and manufacturing collabs with the likes of Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb and Amgen.