Merck and Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare to leverage unique real-world database to inform novel health approaches

Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, and Maccabi Healthcare Services, a two million-member health care provider in Israel, are starting a new, multi-year agreement to leverage real-world data from Maccabi’s unique longitudinal database to inform novel, patient-centered health approaches.

Maccabi and Merck will apply technical and information research capabilities to draw insights from Maccabi’s data to support personalized health care delivery strategies across several therapeutic areas, including prevalent and costly chronic diseases. Specifically, the parties seek to enable better understanding of unmet patient needs, real-world outcomes achieved with medical treatments, and optimal approaches for improving patient adherence.

“Using electronic medical record technology to help improve our patients’ outcomes and well-being has been a Maccabi priority for more than 20 years,” said Varda Shalev, M.D., director of Primary Care Division, Maccabi Health Care Services. “We believe that combining Merck research expertise with our fully integrated, electronic, de-identified patient data can unlock major insights for achieving better outcomes in healthcare, including chronic diseases where education, medication and adherence are so important. Our goal is that our data will enable research projects that advance healthcare, from product development to patient wellness programs.”

A pioneer in electronic medical records, Maccabi has gathered and maintained an electronic medical record (EMR) database since 1993, providing a rare and valuable picture of longitudinal patient health that tracks how visits to primary-care physicians, hospitals and pharmacies, plus demographic shifts during the past 20 years, influence health outcomes. Maccabi’s 2 million members represent nearly 25 percent of the Israeli population, and tend to remain customers of the health care system for life. Maccabi’s data sets are de-identified to fully protect and maintain patient privacy – a top priority for both Maccabi and Merck.

“Market forces are demanding that all of us involved in health care find ways to enhance the quality of care while also offering greater efficiency and value, including research-driven companies like Merck,” said Sachin Jain, M.D., chief medical information and innovation officer, Merck. “In order to actually reduce costs and optimize quality, we’re going to need to have new breakthroughs – in medicines and vaccines, as well as how we structure and organize and deliver care to patients. By harnessing the power of large data sets such as Maccabi’s, we have an opportunity to derive new insights about diseases, treatment paradigms and patients – so we can work to address the most important medical needs of patients as well as the needs of payers.”

In addition to this new agreement with Maccabi, Merck is working with the Regenstrief Institute and PatientsLikeMe® on collaborations to assess and apply insights from their real-world patient databases to advance medical treatment and care.