Matt Veatch — Real World Data, Phenotypes & Why Precision Beats Big Data

Adam Walker:I am Adam Walker, a biometrics consultant, and this is the Pharma Prescribed Podcast where leaders, innovators, and hidden voices in healthcare open up, no sound bites, no spin, just raw insight, one prescription at a time. In an industry driven by data protocols and pressure, we rarely pause to ask the human questions.

What drives us, what breaks us? What truths live behind the titles we wear?

Adam Walker:Today\'s guest is Matt Veach, co-founder and COO of Naviance, and a driving force behind the Real World Wednesday\'s podcast, a weekly forum that\'s shaping how we think about real world data and real world evidence. With more than 25 years of experience advising life science organizations, Matt brings a rare blend of operational insight and visionary thinking to the table.

He\'s a board member of the Decentralized Trials and Research Alliance and is a regular voice at Global \[00:01:00\] Summits and conferences. Matt, it\'s an absolute pleasure to welcome you to Pharma Prescribe Today. How are you?

Matt Veatch:Oh, thank you, Adam. No, it\'s such a pleasure to be here. I\'ve listened to and really enjoyed Pharma prescribed podcasts more the audio version, I must confess.

But really enjoy your content and I\'m so pleased to be your. Guests, probably the least of all of your guests. You\'ve really interviewed some phenomenal people in the industry

Adam Walker:that\'s very kind of you to say. And I feel like I\'m following on your coattails, yours and Aaron\'s with your real world Wednesdays.

That\'s inspired me and that\'s probably a very big reason why I\'m here today asking you the question. So perhaps if we can start by. Just giving a little bit of background to yourself and the mission that you\'re on with evidence.

Matt Veatch:Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Veatch:It\'s a pleasure and I have shared my personal journey and career journey in different podcasts, different for, so I won\'t deep dive too much in all of the chapters, but I\'ll just try to give a synthesis of kind of the background and say that, I was one of those \[00:02:00\] people coming out of college that wasn\'t exactly sure what I wanted to do.

I actually earned a degree and essentially exercised physiology because I was passionate about physiology and human biology and not quite sure what to do with that. But found myself at the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine as it was known at the time, national Jewish Health today.

And I became very interested in clinical research because I had the opportunity to, all of a sudden. Stop working with clinical patients and now start working with clinical research patients. And it fueled a passion. I became very passionate about the business of research, and I\'ve talked about that in many cases.

The business of science is something that I think is critically important and fast forwarding many chapters. I found myself in the CRO world Quintiles was there for many years, and it was actually in Quintiles.

Matt Veatch:That I saw firsthand this rise of electronic \[00:03:00\] medical record data in the mid two thousands and access to data, and wasn\'t really sure what that meant or what the future would hold, but I knew that I wanted to be a part of it because it was just so exciting.

To have this wealth of information and data that could influence our decisions, and that has been an inspiration for me for many years now. I pivoted the career at Quintiles to focus on real world data and rose to a position of senior leadership, very focused on real world evidence. Late phase research.

It was as it was known more commonly back in the day. And, was really inspired by many things like the 21st Century Cures Act to repurpose and use data here in the United States and broadly across the world. How can we use this exhaust of healthcare as it\'s been determined, , or called in many different, , interviews , and \[00:04:00\] situations throughout the world.

And for me. Personally, , that\'s very exciting to have access to this information.

Matt Veatch:Leaving Quintiles, I had another stint at Syns, or actually inventive that would become syns and from my perspective, it was yet another large corporate environment.

Matt Veatch:And what I had learned about myself is that I was actually far more entrepreneurial than the large corporate world really allows.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to be a corporate intrapreneur in my Quintiles days, setting up different business entities and doing things that were very entrepreneurial with the safety net of the large corporation. But it\'s still different than being a real entrepreneur. And so I knew that was my future.

And of course, there\'s the real practical considerations. In my twenties and thirties, I really couldn\'t have been a true entrepreneur. , I needed more safety and security, and I\'ve talked to many entrepreneurs in middle life as I \[00:05:00\] am now in my fifties, and finding that the same thing is, they\'ve always felt more entrepreneurial and really wanting to try new and different things, but needed the security of the stable corporate job.

And so in no way do I look down on that background or experience. It\'s been a wealth of knowledge for me. I\'ve gained a lot from it and numerous professional contacts that have been very rewarding. So , for me personally. As , a middle aged entrepreneur, I have the opportunity to shape the direction of a company and one that I couldn\'t be more passionate about.

Matt Veatch:It\'s not a real world data company in and of itself, but as the chief operating officer and co-founder of Navidence, we find that there needs to be more of an operating system between data consumers and data suppliers. And Adam, obviously with your background , in biometrics , and really understanding how protocols are developed and the statistical \[00:06:00\] powering of them.

Something that, that I learned from my consulting practice, which after leaving cs, , the toe step in the direction of entrepreneurism was to become a consultant. And I really enjoyed that chapter of the career because that led into the opportunity meeting my current business partners, , while consult.

Matt Veatch:It led to the opportunity to co-found evidence, and our focus in Navidence is around real world data for evidentiary use cases, which actually is spanning more and more into randomized controlled trials, which is very interesting. We had this RWE focus for quite some time, and we\'re getting pulled into RCTs by our large pharma clients.

Adam Walker:You\'ve mentioned a number of things there, Matt, and I\'d like to unpick a couple of them. Your background. Very similar to mine actually. I think we have that in common, in that you mentioned about that entrepreneurial spirit that was with you from a young age. We seem to have had a very similar sort \[00:07:00\] of corporate climb through various roles in CROs and , supporting companies.

It\'s very interesting when you talk about. Then applying that under your own steam, it\'s a very different approach, isn\'t it? And clearly there was something in you that was driving you forward in that. It\'s quite different when you\'re doing it with someone else\'s name over the door than when it\'s your own.

Matt Veatch:Very true. Yeah. And certainly being a part of a team and supporting a team and supporting an extended team as you have in companies, has been fun and rewarding in different ways. So I don\'t in any way mean to diminish that it\'s been, great experience and I\'ve got high regard , for all of the professionals that make those companies work.

But I think that there is this passion I don\'t know what fuels the fire exactly, but it is just to do something a little bit different, to be a little bit more cutting edge, to look at something in a little bit different way. And it doesn\'t have to be radically different. It just has to be an improvement, an incremental improvement.

\[00:08:00\] And seeing that those incremental improvements, one after the next actually yields fairly substantial change. It isn\'t revolutionary, it is more evolutionary, but in the industry that we\'re in, the life sciences, it needs to be more evolutionary, I think.

Adam Walker:Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree with that. And when you\'re mentioning around, that shift from RCTs remote randomized control trials and observational studies.

You remind me very much of how we acquire this knowledge through, through a career. And you mentioned also around, being a middle lifer similar to you. There came a point at which I thought I need to do this. If I don\'t do this now, I\'m never gonna do it. And I\'m sensing that the opportunity to work with some really highly skilled people at Naviance.

Perhaps pushed you over the line with that. Could you just elaborate on that a little bit further?

Matt Veatch:Absolutely. When you see \[00:09:00\] real genius, when you see real competence and experience it has an impact on you. And that was something that in meeting my business partner very quickly saw.

Some sparks of genius and just a different way of doing things, and among all of the founders of Navi and the four of us, just each bringing something different and very exciting and wanting more of that, and that was really what led to the inception of creating this company. That was addressing many of the questions that we were getting from a consulting perspective, and we wove that into this company intentionally cannibalizing some of our consulting work with a software as a service solution, a platform that would help address that fit for purpose.

Question of finding. The right real world data and applying that given a life science use case or need.

Matt Veatch:And what is very \[00:10:00\] closely adjacent to that is the fact that, for decades, protocols of all types in clinical research have been prepared by experts. Makes sense. You\'ve got domain knowledge and experience.

But these are still just individuals. And if you have a team of 3, 4, 5, 6, even 10 individuals, they bring their collective experience and that can yield a very good protocol, a robust protocol, as we\'ve seen over decades of research experience. But the future has something I think that we need to tap into more and more, given the accessibility of real world data and the AI tools that are emerging and taking root today.

We\'re still in the infancy. These are. The pioneer days of AI in the life science arena, and I won\'t go too far down that path because we use AI tools, but they\'re just tools in the toolbox. We use them to achieve certain objectives as part of our platform. And \[00:11:00\] with the experience of our expert team, it\'s really to address client questions and needs and moving away from those protocols that are developed purely from expert opinion and experience, which again, is very good.

But shifting to a data-driven approach, and that in my mind is the overarching focus of real world data today. It is to understand how clinical healthcare captures the encounter with the patient and how that can fuel and enable a research opportunity. Because we have this wealth of knowledge and insight that comes from clinical care, and that can yield a much more effective type of research through the precision, the understanding of the patient population.

It transcends the diagnosis or diagnosis code. It\'s really an interrelationship of all of the codes that characterize. These are the coding ontologies, things \[00:12:00\] like ICD 10 or Legacy ICD nine. The international versions of those SNOMED loin codes, all of the different coding ontologies that are used to capture medical encounters and administrate the business side of medicine and healthcare collectively, all of that creates a characterization of a patient that can be used to really refine the protocol.

And what is so fascinating is that. Every pharmaceutical company that I\'ve consulted, those that I\'m working with today as an extension of Naviance, they all create code lists. They establish a protocol and they\'re trying to map back to these coding ontologies. And doesn\'t it make sense to turn that around?

And if you\'re trying to recruit patients and use real world data, electronic medical record data and other sources to do that. Doesn\'t it make sense to design the protocol from those coding \[00:13:00\] ontologies where you can actually not have to worry about mapping to the real world data? You\'re using the real world data to actually shape and influence the inclusion, exclusion criteria and other study characteristics that are so important for the recruitment.

Adam Walker:You make an incredibly important. Observation there around collecting data and pushing that through into a protocol rather than the other way round, which is the RCT approach, of course, where you define those data points before, try and collect them with the patients and this very expensive and long-winded approach to try and find the perfect patient and identify, recruit, retain, all the way through to the end.

I\'d love you to just explain how that works in a real world setting in reality, because, in the experiences that I\'ve had in working in real world evidence, it can be very difficult to find those \[00:14:00\] square pegs and ram holes. There are lots of them, aren\'t there? And you described around the ontologies and the naming conventions.

Where do you find that information and where does it come from and what is the experience that evidence is using to. Access that information,

Matt Veatch:information ab absolutely. It\'s a fantastic question, Adam. And I think it\'s very important to highlight that there is no single right answer.

So as we delve into characterizing patients, it is shades of gray. And there is still important decisions to be made by the life science company, but you have to start somewhere. Typically it\'s very helpful to look at what\'s been done before and that\'s where the systematic literature review, or just maybe better to say, a very comprehensive literature review is critically important.

And we have a fantastic partner called Nested Knowledge. I\'m pleased to use their name because they are such a great company and we \[00:15:00\] are delighted by the work that we have ongoing with them. It\'s a formal partnership and the AI enabled literature searches. Allow us to start with a very firm foundation of what\'s been done previously.

And many of those studies include validation criteria, which is another very important thing for us to consider what\'s been validated previously to characterize certain diseases or disease indications. And again, that\'s just the starting point because then you have to look at coding ontologies starting typically with ICD 10.

But then incorporating whether it\'s drug codes, laboratory codes, there\'s other codes that characterize biomarkers of interest. To spare the audience, I won\'t go too far down the path of all of these coding ontologies by name, but just suffice it to say there are many of them and the professional experts that delve into these considerations medical informaticists they must develop.

A \[00:16:00\] very detailed understanding of the interrelationships of these codes and the impact that can have. Because if you look at, for example, a diabetes patient and the codes that characterize them, the codes that characterize the diabetes patient that is also immunocompromised, whether it be from medications or concomitant medications or comorbid condition.

That\'s a different characterization. That\'s a different patient. And if you have that fundamental understanding, instead of the old school of using EMR, of going and finding, diabetes patients and then screening them. Going through that process of interviews and, recruitment outreach and engagement that\'s very expensive.

It consumes a lot of time. There\'s a lot of staff effort involved in that. If you\'ve been able to greatly constrain the variables that you are. Interested in and identify some of those exclusions upfront. \[00:17:00\] Sure. A patient can always say no, I\'ve often talked about the fact that you can have the best patients, the best real world data.

And it still may not be appropriate for the patient and the patient\'s own mind, and we respect that. We have to appreciate that. And being a a former a clinical research subject myself not every protocol is appropriate. Not every protocol is something that I would want to participate in.

And. Creating the opportunities that I think is what is most important, the opportunity to participate in research, and this is one of the key considerations for real world data. It creates opportunity where it didn\'t exist before. What do I mean by that? Patients that meet certain criteria that meet the criteria that have the real world characterization that we\'re talking about are digital or computable phenotype as it is often called.

They might be in a rural setting. They may not be. One of the academic medical centers that is notoriously associated with \[00:18:00\] clinical research. And that is a phenomenal consideration because now we have the ability to outreach and engage with patients wherever they are. And I think that is something that is continuing to increase it\'s technology enabled in a way, but it\'s also a culture shift.

It\'s a mentality of, hey you can participate in research no matter where you are. And I think that\'s very exciting.

Adam Walker:Thank you for explaining that and you\'ve really got me thinking both backwards and forwards. Backwards. I\'m thinking the decentralized approach came about firsthand around COVID, around the pandemic and the necessity to connect patients with sites and using the technology that we already had, but was very.

Reluctantly used, wasn\'t it, to access those remote patients. So really what I\'m identifying is that in the rear view, we\'re looking at the experiences of COVID and how that translated forward. \[00:19:00\] And now you\'ve made mention of the implementation of technology around ai, large language models, which are instructive and informative around identifying.

These patient ontologies as you\'ve described, there\'s been a huge shift in little more than five years, hasn\'t there? I\'d love to just hear your perspective on that because you are talking to people in real world evidence every week on your podcast and you are working with people who are. Trying to overcome these challenges on a regular basis.

I\'d just love to hear that perspective of yours.

Matt Veatch:it is fascinating and you\'re right.

Matt Veatch:You know what, what was so interesting about the decentralized trial and research alliance dtra.org, which we set up as a nonprofit, government entities could participate. We\'re very pleased that FDA is a member of DTRA and just phenomenal and great contributions.

But DTRA started in that final chapter of traditional research, meaning that there was still, standard protocols. And this was part of \[00:20:00\] the conundrum with COVID, was trying to adapt. An environment that demanded decentralization, demanded the ability to engage with patients wherever they are, and yet the infrastructure was not necessarily there.

Now it\'s improved radically over the last five, six years. But there\'s still a long way to go and decentralized. While it is often confused as just being like, using your mobile phone for research, that\'s an important piece, but it\'s really an ecosystem of how research is conducted. Real world data fits into that because you have that ability to find the patients, the ability to engage with their clinicians for recruitment.

All of those things are key considerations. And decentralized has been termed a marketing term or a buzzword, a business buzzword. And I take exception with that because decentralized is actually now. Fortunately the FDA saw this early on. It\'s a \[00:21:00\] regulatory term. That\'s why we\'ve got the guidance document for decentralized trials and specifically decentralized elements.

Because a study need not be completely decentralized, there are decentralized elements that are woven into the fabric of the research design. Can really expand the opportunity to engage patients again no matter where they are. But also patients that may not have ever considered research previously and may not have even known what a clinical trial is.

And with the notoriously poor participation in clinical trials, I think part of it is just an awareness that needs to occur. And I see decentralized directly facilitating. Broader lay person, lay patient, if you will, awareness of what clinical research is all about. And decades ago research was not as ethical as it is today, unfortunately.

And there\'s many examples of that. And I\'m so pleased that the \[00:22:00\] ethical considerations. Of research have expanded and grown in the ethics of regulatory. And all of that is critically important. But now we\'re faced with these considerations of ethics using and deploying AI tools, and that is another very important consideration that must parallel our advancements in engaging in working with patients in a decentralized manner.

If we\'re finding them, if we\'re accessing information, if we\'re using the data, that all needs to be under an ethical framework, a formal ethical framework, and I think that this is where we have tremendous opportunity in clinical research, categorically, and that spans not just rct, but outcomes research, RWE, if you will.

We need to be very mindful of how these tools are being deployed. How they\'re being implemented and the potential impact that can have. And that needs to be very purposeful. We can\'t haphazardly use tools that have had \[00:23:00\] phenomenal advancement over the last couple of years. We can\'t use them in a haphazard manner.

Adam Walker:is this the perfect storm? Do we now have the guidance in place from the FDA and other local regulators alongside the implementation of. As yet many unproven technologies what is the future looking and how soon is that future likely to be in place? And I\'m thinking particularly with Navient at the forefront of that.

Well,

Matt Veatch:I will say regulatory science has seen tremendous advancements just in the span of my nearly 30 year career, and that\'s been phenomenal to see. And those continue. And we have a, an agency today that is very passionate about those advancements and true regulatory science innovation, which is very exciting.

But regulatory science is also never. Finished because technology, the landscape of research is always changing. There\'s always adaptation, \[00:24:00\] always accommodation that is going to be necessary in creating that regulatory framework to support the research of tomorrow. And not just, a year from now and five years from now, but 10 years from now, it\'s going to look a lot different.

So in terms of Perfect storm. I\'m not sure about that, but it\'s an amazing convergence of capability of regulatory science, access to data, and tremendously powerful large language models that allow us to interrogate data very quickly. So I just couldn\'t be more excited to be in the clinical research arena in this chapter of my career, because while I\'ve been at it for 30 years, I feel like there\'s just so much more to do.

It\'s just so exciting.

Adam Walker:I have to echo that because that\'s my experience similarly, and I didn\'t anticipate that at this point in my career, in a similar sort of vein to your own experiences that I would still be discovering and unearthing things that were \[00:25:00\] firing me as much as they were when I first learned these things 25, 30 years ago.

Like yourself, there seems to be enormous opportunity for personal and functional growth. Around clinical research, the trials, the data, and the quality. More importantly, how do we ensure that quality continues to be also pivotal and patient safety is retained at the forefront of all the things that we\'re doing and that we do not lose sight around that.

Matt Veatch:It\'s a great question, and I think a lot of that needs to be very specifically addressed. In the protocol design and obviously safety considerations that\'s been addressed in protocols for decades. But the safety of patients critical to all research must be formally addressed.

And if it\'s under that framework, if there\'s outreach and engagement through different AI tools actually weaving that into the \[00:26:00\] protocol and clearly stating what the framework is, how the decision should be made. And if a patient is identified erroneously, let\'s capture that.

It is possible. Anyone that\'s used chat, GPT or perplexity or cloud, they see at the bottom. It is an AI tool. Mistakes can be made errors, hallucinations lesser known these partial truths or mirage as they\'ve been called. These are things that can\'t happen, and we have to guard against that.

I realize that\'s just a facet of the question that you\'re posing Adam but I think that is a very important one, but really weaving that into the protocol very holistically, and then clearly be able to address these considerations in the informed consent. Is going to be increasingly important and not to go too far down the path of informed consents, but I think that is an area where there has also been original and innovative thinking.

There\'s been advancements with broad consents specifically \[00:27:00\] over the last few years incorporating in consents the ability to have patients consent for access to their real world data. Being able to weave that into the research. Even after the study has been conducted also consents for tokenizing data to broaden and expand access to data.

I\'m so excited. I get chills when I think about all of the ways that we can engage. Connect and interlink data in ways that was just never possible before. And with the computing capacity and power and the large language models to really understand that volume of data and make associations that humans may never have been able to make independent of using technology to do that and those associations, those characteristics that no matter how.

Odd or out of left field, they may seem they couldn\'t be very relevant to the patient population in the future.

Adam Walker:Yeah I wholeheartedly agree with that.

Adam Walker:You touched or mentioned \[00:28:00\] the word tokenization. There might be many people of our audience out there that don\'t know what tokenization is.

I\'d really like a nice little 30,000 foot view of what tokenization is having, having been in the weeds of tokenization myself. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think it\'s, I think it\'s a really great point that I\'d love to just elaborate on.

Matt Veatch:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There, there are actually several different types of tokens and just to ensure that we don\'t have confusion, we\'re not talking about things like non fungible tokens or NFTs, that is something different.

It\'s a different use case and just borrows the same nomenclature of token. But that\'s where it ends. The tokens that I\'m talking about are essentially administrative. It\'s an ability to link by creating a key across two distinct data sets, but referencing an identical in the case of real world data.

It\'s the same patient, but there\'s no need to know the identity or identifiers or the personal health \[00:29:00\] information of the patient. It is to make the association of those data sets in a confidential manner. I\'m trying to use, lay language here to explain to any listener that this is not something to be feared or concerned about.

This is actually a way of using data sets to support and enable research. And I\'ve had this conversation with friends of mine. I said, if unfortunately you developed cancer. Would you participate in a cancer clinical trial? I don\'t know about, scheduling and I\'d have to see, and I would want to help, I would wanna be helpful.

And I said what if just your data was helpful? What if just your medical encounters could help open insights to treatment or potentially a new therapeutic? Oh that would be fine. I would welcome that. Great. Okay. That\'s a variant on a theme of participating in research and that ability to use that data.

Obviously there\'s privacy considerations \[00:30:00\] and how data can be applied in AI and other types of research analytics. And linked is through that administrative use of a token. And it all stems back to the ability to resolve between two or more data sets that ability to have the linkage and aggregation of the dataset without identifying the patient.

And that\'s very important because speaking from the perspective of being an American here in the us. Healthcare can occur at many different locations with different electronic medical records, and despite the ambition on the clinical side for things like complete interoperability, we\'re still years and years away from that.

There\'s tools and there\'s methodologies to help bridge that. There have been advancements, but in a healthcare system where we still have literal faxes that occur every day. There needs to be a better way of linking data and \[00:31:00\] tokens are a way to do that. Very powerful tool.

Adam Walker:I think you\'ve explained that beautifully.

I couldn\'t have put it better myself. And you\'ve really connected both the data and the privacy and really the challenges around that and why it is so important moving forward into the future, because. What you were reminding me of was almost this opt-in, opt-out patient question really, isn\'t it?

It\'s if you\'re suffering from a condition, of course you don\'t want others to experience that. Those same symptoms, those same challenges that you\'ve got. And at the same time, you may not be well enough to go to a particular site, but your data is extremely valuable, isn\'t it? And it\'s that which I think that your.

Really touching on around that piece of discussion around tokenization is just connecting data to other pieces of data for that enormous funnel that really real world evidence focuses on, isn\'t it? It\'s bringing great big data \[00:32:00\] sets and trying to simplify the complex into a patient population around a protocol, as you\'ve described, at the very earliest point into something tangible or.

Medically qualified people, clinical researchers, epidemiologists to make patterns, draw pictures from that information. Is that really at the nub of it?

Matt Veatch:It absolutely is.

Matt Veatch:And it wasn\'t that long ago that we heard the often cited expression of big data, and I\'m pleased that we\'ve moved beyond this big data era where, of course if you have aggregated.

A lot of data sets you all of a sudden have a lot of data, but that isn\'t what\'s powerful. It\'s the ability to resolve the small data, the small dataset, the highly precise, the refined dataset, and to talk just a little bit about evidence\'s focus. It is that \[00:33:00\] research precision. It is being able to know with predictable certainty.

The data elements that are necessary from the real world data, whether it\'s electronic medical records, imaging, genomic biomarkers, what are those data elements that characterize that patient in a unique way? In a way, you could think of it as a variant on a theme of a key. It\'s that key that fits the lock of the research study.

And that is what we work with, our SaaS platform, our tech enabled services. We\'ve got expert, md, PhD, medical informaticists, that address these considerations to create that digital phenotype, the digital characterization of the patient to really improve the precision of the research. To save time to reduce things like feasibility.

The feasibility of assessing real world data is very burdensome. \[00:34:00\] Takes weeks in some cases, months, and others depending on the type of data. And if you can cut that. Into a matter of hours from what has been say, eight to 10 weeks for a lot of larger feasibilities, cross country cross continent types of research studies.

Being able to shave that down to hours has a profound impact on research. Now are we realizing that today. We have some large pharma and some mid-tier pharma that are capitalizing on the value of this precision. But on the other hand, there\'s still an education piece associated with that.

And part of what is I think going on, it\'s just that there has been so much change and so much integration and use of real world data. Now we\'ve got, RWD and RWE teams in pharmaceutical companies, which is really exciting, but there\'s still this carryover effect of traditional ways of doing things and that.

Expert LED protocol, and I\'m not \[00:35:00\] saying experts shouldn\'t be involved in protocols. They absolutely should be. We need the human, the often cited human in the loop, critically important, but doesn\'t it make sense to empower the humans with more precise information so they can really refine.

Their protocol design sooner, more quickly, and with better clarity of the patient. That\'s really needed. And moreover this extends all the way back to the development of the target product profile. Which in early development, creating a target product profile for the conceptualization and the entire pathway of a drug\'s development doesn\'t make sense to have consistency in what that indication is from the very beginning.

And if you really understand that indication, that disease indication, the focus for that therapeutic. Sure the science tells a story. The science may refine and change that over time. A good target product profile is a living \[00:36:00\] document, but on the other hand, having clarity from the beginning all the way through commercialization.

That is really exciting to think about and I think will have a profound impact on research as we know it today. And this is not science fiction. This is in the here and now. There are companies that are doing this, but it\'s just the organizational wherewithal changing some of the culture to even incorporate a digital phenotype or a computable phenotype of a patient across the spectrum of development into commercialization.

Adam Walker:It\'s a wonderful insight. Thank you for providing that.

Adam Walker:Matt, again, as you were explaining that and talking through that, I was thinking about the future. Now. None of us have crystal balls, but if you were to speak to your future self, what would you hope the future might look like based upon what you\'ve seen over this incredible period of, let\'s say the last five.

To 10 years, \[00:37:00\] what would you hope for the future to look like? Because we have lots of young people coming into this industry who are enthused by hearing from the real sharp edge of innovation right now. And I think you are there. But I\'d love to know what you think or hope for the future of this wonderful industry that we\'re working in.

Matt Veatch:In my podcast that I host with Aaron Kama. We\'ve often talked about the fact that of our generation and those really over the last 10 years no one was sitting in high school or early college saying, oh, I wanna go into real world data. That was not a thing.

We have seen the change, we have seen the advancements, and we couldn\'t be more excited about people that are passionate about the power of data and want that to be their career. And we are starting to see that infuse different programs. Epidemiology, biostatistics, increasing focus on real world data.

Its use, its application. And \[00:38:00\] obviously the business side of that as well. The business of research often creates more hurdles than the science side of research. And so there has to be people that understand the science but are addressing the business considerations. And I think that\'s profound to think about as well.

But really, my future self. I would love to figure out a way that we can help educate the industry about the power of these tools and not just isolate that in conferences and limited, online content. But the virtual equivalent of shouting from the rooftops on the capability of the tools, the technology that is in existence today and can have an impact. It can\'t just be the sheer force of will to get it done. It\'s a combination of education. Of culture change in pharmaceutical companies. Unfortunately, this is a year that has seen unprecedented layoffs and reorganization in pharmaceutical companies. That\'s \[00:39:00\] unfortunate, but let\'s take this opportunity to weave into the new ways that pharmaceutical companies are operating and developing therapeutics.

Let\'s consider how we can leverage. All of these changes, all of these evolutionary changes over the last few years to impact research and to create new opportunities for people, for humans to execute on, to operationalize this research could be more passionate about that.

Adam Walker:I really appreciate you sharing that insight and.

To echo everything that you said. I think there has never been a more exciting time to be working in our industry right now, in and around drug development clinical trials. Data is absolutely at the pivot point, isn\'t it? Like it\'s never, ever been before.

Adam Walker:I think it\'s a really wonderful point at which to perhaps move into our quickfire round.

Adam Walker:Matt, if you don\'t mind we\'ve touched on so much today and I don\'t \[00:40:00\] want to limit. The amount of time that you have the opportunity to explain because you speak so beautifully and with such knowledge, and I think you\'re a font of knowledge that I would love to continue this conversation at another point.

But moving into our quickfire round, , what is the one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

Matt Veatch:Not fear entrepreneurism , know that you are far more capable than you thought maybe in your early twenties.

Adam Walker:What are the top three qualities you value most when building a team?

Matt Veatch:It\'s maybe a bit cliche, but trust is critically important.

You have to trust before anything else is really possible. It is looking at a team , this may sound a bit odd, but it\'s, a bit like puzzle pieces. How do those puzzle pieces fit together? . A focus on, , managing strengths is important. You also have to know those weaknesses, but that is exactly how puzzle pieces fit together.

So I think that\'s critically important.

Adam Walker:I love that. And your favorite thing \[00:41:00\] outside of work?

Matt Veatch:, It\'s almost like a part-time job. I\'m very passionate about exercise , whether it\'s going to the gym, riding the bike, whatever just being in motion given like many today.

. A job that is in front of a keyboard for hours on end. The opportunity to not be on the keyboard is actually where I do some of my best work. Might be on the bike, might be in the gym. I\'m often I\'ve got my phone in hand and , I\'m noting something that just came to me while I was, on the bench press.

And I think it\'s critically important to have that mind, body and spirit. That\'s another topic for another day, but I think that trifecta creates the whole person and is critically important to, to really everyday success.

Adam Walker:Ly agree with that. Finally, what is your number one golden rule in life and in business?

Matt?

Adam Walker:Golden rule. I would say , you have

Matt Veatch:to be passionate about the work that you are doing and if you are not, take steps to get to \[00:42:00\] that role where you are passionate about what you\'re doing. It is absolutely important. You will be a better person. You will be enjoying your work.

You will be a better person to be around if you are doing work that you were passionate about.

Adam Walker:Amen. I say the same to my kids. By the way. Follow your passion and no day will feel like a day\'s work. Okay? That\'s what we say. My wife and I say that to our kids all the time. I love it and I think they\'re doing that.

Next.

Adam Walker:, we\'ve touched on so much today, Matt from, your background in the industry to today and building, , a wonderful company in Navidence and some of the activities that you\'re doing. The future opportunities seem endless and limitless, dare I say. And what\'s the best way for our audience if they wanna make contact with you

Matt Veatch:I welcome outreach. , LinkedIn is always great, easy. , You can find my profile on LinkedIn easy enough. , But also email \[00:43:00\] matt@navidence.com. Please send me a message. I\'d love to learn about your work, your interests, your passions, and share even more about Nance.

Adam Walker:As I say, it\'s been an absolute delight to welcome you on Pharma Prescribed Today, Matt, I\'ve learned plenty. I know our audience will have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, and I very much look forward to doing it again. Keep doing everything that you\'re doing on Real World Wednesdays. It\'s phenomenal, it\'s instructional and it\'s inspirational and it\'s, as I said at the beginning, one of the reasons why I thought I could have a crack at this game.

Thank you so much for being on Pharma Prescribed Today.

Matt Veatch:Thank you Adam. And from one podcast or to another, , you are doing a phenomenal job and excellent work, excellent content, and I can feel, I can see and experience the passion coming from you. So thank you for that.

Adam Walker:Thank you, Matt. That means the world to me,