Novartis, Cota Healthcare re-up on breast cancer

Novartis and precision medicine player Cota Healthcare have inked a multiyear partnership to improve clinical outcomes and reduce costs for breast cancer patients.

Novartis will tap Cota Healthcare’s web-based analysis and visualization tools, as well as its medical, data science and technology experts, to ramp up its development of new breast cancer treatments and to identify the patients who would benefit most, Cota said in a statement.

Cota’s platform is based on its Cota Nodal Address technology, which uses personal and clinical information to classify patients into different groups. Patients in the same group, or CNA, may be considered medically identical, and so, should have similar treatments and similar outcomes, Cota said.

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The new deal builds on a previous collaboration the pair entered in January last year, with the same objective.

"Data and insight that comes directly from patient records—real-world evidence—is transforming how pharmaceutical and life science companies develop more precise, targeted therapies," said Cota CEO John Hervey, in the statement. "Novartis has been an incredible collaborator over the last several years in adopting Cota's real-world evidence solutions to advance our shared goal of quantifiably improving and extending patient lives."