| The moolah New York-based Novellia closed a $18 million Series A on Tuesday, bringing its total funding amount $28 million. The funding round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures, TMV, Acrew Capital and Bling Capital. The real-world data space Novellia CEO Shashi Sankar pointed out that traditional real-world data vendors largely operate the same way: purchasing data from brokers, health systems and other third parties. Because this data is fragmented and often not directly consented by patients, it’s difficult to create a complete picture of a person’s healthcare story. Novellia was built around the idea that a patient-centered approach could result in more complete datasets, Shankar noted. With complete datasets, pharma companies can generate more accurate evidence on safety, efficacy and care patterns, he added. Pharma use cases Shankar said Novellia already works with a majority of the top 10 pharma companies. The startup’s platform helps them better understand safety signals and outcomes in real-world settings, he stated. For instance, Shankar pointed out that Novellia helped a customer analyze safety concerns surrounding a breast cancer drug, and the platform ended up finding a lower incidence of a suspected adverse event than previously believed. The startup has also contributed to research on care variation. It studied biomarker testing patterns and found significant differences between physicians practicing at centers of excellence and those in community settings, Shankar noted. Data validation is another key use case that he highlighted. By comparing multiple data sources, Novellia has identified physician transcription errors in lab records that other datasets would have missed, he said. — By Katie Adams |
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