Verana Health to Present Findings of Studies Using American Academy of Ophthalmology IRIS® Registry Data to Advance Insights into Real World Outcomes in Treating AMD

Dr. Durga Borkar to Deliver Podium Talk at The Retina Society's Annual Meeting

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- During The Retina Society's 55th Annual Scientific Meeting Nov. 2 to 5, Verana Health®—a digital health company elevating quality in real-world data—will present findings on two separate studies that utilize curated real-world data (RWD) from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (Academy) IRIS® Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight).

Durga Borkar, MD, MMCi, a Verana Health medical advisor and a vitreoretinal surgeon at Duke University Eye Center, will deliver a podium talk at 9:30 a.m. PT on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. The title of her talk is "Clinical Trial Emulation of the Comparison of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Treatment Trials (CATT) Using Data from the IRIS® Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight)."

The goal of this study was to emulate the pro re nata (p.r.n.) treatment arms of the CATT trial using de-identified IRIS Registry data from a real-world population to compare treatment outcomes at one year to the monthly treatment arms of the CATT using patient-level clinical trial data. Neovascular AMD, also known as wet AMD, is a sight-threatening form of AMD that occurs when a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) makes abnormal blood vessels grow in the wrong place in the back of a patient's eye.

"This methodologic study demonstrates how patient-level clinical trial data from the CATT trial could be used to help create a real-world patient cohort that matches the treatment pattern of one or two of the treatment arms in the trial," said Dr. Borkar. "More significantly, this type of methodology can be applied to clinical trials in different disease areas, such as geographic atrophy, which currently doesn't have a treatment."

Established in 2014, the IRIS Registry is one of the largest specialty society clinical data registries in all of medicine. Verana Health is the Academy's end-to-end data curation and analytics partner for the IRIS Registry, managing its data—comprising nearly 10 years of longitudinal data from more than 75 million patients and about 16,000 providers—using its VeraQ population health data engine.

"Generating synthetic control arms has been done in therapeutic areas such as oncology, but it is not something we typically see in ophthalmology. This research demonstrates the potential use of curated real-world data and real-world evidence from clinical registries to replicate control arms in clinical trials," said Verana Health CEO Sujay Jadhav. "Traditionally, it has been difficult to recruit patients for certain types of studies, such as for inherited retinal degenerations. Using an external control arm based on real-world data means that important research may be able to proceed more quickly and cost-effectively. Analyzing curated data from the IRIS Registry, in particular, can help researchers observe the natural progression of ophthalmic diseases, which may aid in patient recruitment or even trial replication."

Mathew MacCumber, MD, PhD, a professor and associate chairman for research in the Department of Ophthalmology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, will present a poster on Thursday, Nov. 3 from 1:22 - 2:07 p.m. PT. The poster, a collaboration between Verana Health and Novartis, is titled "Effectiveness and Durability of Brolucizumab Treatment in Real-World Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration (nAMD) Patients in the U.S.: Findings from the American Academy of Ophthalmology IRIS^Ⓡ Registry (Intelligent Research in Sight)."

The purpose of this study was to evaluate real-world outcomes in patients with nAMD after 12 months of brolucizumab therapy. The study found that switching to brolucizumab treatment can offer an advantage for patients with a high anti-VEGF treatment burden.

Brolucizumab-dbl (Beovu®; manufactured by Novartis), an anti-VEGF molecule, suppresses abnormal blood vessel growth and leakage in the eyes of patients with nAMD that may cause vision loss. The drug was approved by the FDA in 2019. Brolucizumab is administered via injection.

Verana Health® is a digital health company elevating quality in real-world data. Verana Health operates an exclusive real-world data network of more than 20,000 healthcare providers (HCPs) and about 90 million de-identified patients, stemming from its strategic data partnerships with the American Academy of Ophthalmology®, American Academy of Neurology, and American Urological Association. Using its clinician-informed and artificial intelligence-enhanced VeraQ™ population health data engine, Verana Health transforms structured and unstructured healthcare data into curated, disease-specific data modules, Qdata™. Verana Health's Qdata helps power analytics solutions and software-as-a-service products for real-world evidence generation, clinical trials enablement, HCP quality reporting, and medical registry data management. Verana Health's quality data and insights help drive progress in medicine to enhance the quality of care and quality of life for patients. For more information, visit www.veranahealth.com.

Media contact:
Megan Moriarty
Amendola Communications
913.515.7530
[email protected]

SOURCE Verana Health