To Örebro University

Background: While Real-world Evidence (RWE) has documented value for safety monitoring and disease epidemiology, its objective contribution to safety and efficacy evaluations for regulatory purposes is still unclear. Here, we aim to describe the prevalence and type of RWE considered by European Medicines Agency (EMA) as contribution to efficacy and safety-related evidence generation among approved oncology targeted therapies...

Methods: On March 10, 2023, we screened the medicines listing of EMA to identify all anti-cancer targeted therapies for solid malignancies with a decision date (initial marketing authorizations and extension of indications) between 2018-2022. We screened the European public assessment reports (EPARs) using a standardized approach to collect data on RWE. When generated pre-authorization, the RWE contribution to the final regulatory decision was classified as definitive, supportive, or non-supportive. For...

Results: Out of a total of 1976 medicines, we identified 55 oncology targeted therapies, corresponding to 75 EPARs (indications), which are described in the table. The use of RWE in regulatory deliberations occurred in 24/75 (32%) EPARs, increasing from 30% in 2018-2020, to 34% in 2021-2022. Pre-authorization RWE was described in 20/24 (83%) EPARs, among which none were definitive, 8 RWE studies (in 7 EPARs) non-supportive, and 20 RWE studies (in 15 EPARs) were supportive of the decision. Published RWE...

Conclusions: Over the past 5 years, RWE involvement in the approval of oncology targeted therapies in Europe tends to increase, with the majority being supportive for EMA regulatory decision making complementary to traditional clinical trials...