NEC Orchestrating Future Fund Announces Strategic Investment in Aetion

NEC and Aetion are exploring a collaboration to commercialize global access to real-world data from Japanese electronic health records for drug development

TOKYO and NEW YORK, Feb. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- NEC Orchestrating Future Fund (NOFF), an ecosystem-based corporate venture capital (CVC) fund established in 2021 by NEC Corporation, today announced that it has invested in Aetion, the global leader in real-world evidence (RWE) technology and analytics. Additionally, NEC and Aetion are collaborating to use real-world data (RWD) from Japanese electronic health records (EHR) on Aetion's Substantiate^® application, powered by the Aetion Evidence Platform^® (AEP), to further drug development in life sciences companies in Japan, and ultimately worldwide.

"As Aetion redefines how healthcare organizations make critical decisions with enterprise-grade technology, this investment from NOFF demonstrates their vision of how our software can help decision makers in Japan and beyond," said Jeremy Rassen, ScD, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aetion. "We look forward to continued collaboration with NEC, innovating together to meet the global demand for decision-grade solutions that drive measurable change across the healthcare landscape."

AEP is a scientifically validated software platform that enables the transformation of RWD to RWE using deep scientific methods from causal inference and critical insights from artificial intelligence (AI). It provides rapid and transparent answers on the safety, effectiveness and value of medical interventions across their lifecycles for numerous organizations worldwide, including pharmaceutical, medtech and biotech companies, regulatory agencies, payers, and healthcare institutions. The platform prioritizes data protection by using advanced privacy-preserving techniques, including synthetic data generation, allowing users to analyze real-world healthcare data while maintaining patient confidentiality and adhering to strict data privacy regulations. Aetion^® Substantiate is an advanced analytics application that allows users to build complex, decision-grade studies, while adhering to the core scientific principles of transparency and reproducibility, setting the global standard for transforming data into evidence for high-stakes decisions.

NEC is a global leader in communications and information technology solutions and one of Japan's largest EHR vendors providing more than 50 years of IT services to hospitals across the country. It aims to address medical and healthcare challenges and create new value through its healthcare and life sciences business. The partnership between NEC and Aetion has the potential to improve the efficiency of the drug development process, streamline regulatory approval pathways and lead to the creation of new treatment methods.

"NOFF invests in startups that are pioneering new markets with cutting-edge technologies and innovative business models," said Shigeki Wada, corporate senior vice president of NEC Corporation. "Aetion's RWD/RWE-based medical decision support can contribute to the establishment of next-generation healthcare and is in line with our vision of a society that 'contributes to personalized medicine.' Together with Aetion, we will accelerate our efforts to create new social value."

About Aetion
Aetion is a healthcare analytics company that delivers real-world evidence for the manufacturers, purchasers and regulators of medical treatments and technologies. Aetion's suite of real-world data analytics applications analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness and value. Founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members with decades of experience in epidemiology and health outcomes research, Aetion informs healthcare's most critical decisions—what works best, for whom and when—to guide product development, commercialization and payment innovation. The company's investors include Flare Capital Partners, NEA, Warburg Pincus, B Capital and a number of leading life sciences and payer partners. Learn more at aetion.com and follow us on LinkedIn.   

SOURCE Aetion