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Home > All articles > Setting up a Nordic RWE study in Sweden – fast access to patients’ numbers and distribution across Sweden
Setting up a Nordic RWE study in Sweden – fast access to patients’ numbers and distribution across Sweden
Sweden’s publicly funded healthcare system and universal access to specialized health care make the data derived from Sweden broadly generalizable, covering diverse populations including different ethnic backgrounds.
The wealth of population-level health and administrative data in Sweden, often reaching nearly 100 percent coverage with high concordance, serves as a valuable resource to pharmaceutical companies for real-world evidence (RWE).
The ability to unambiguously link data from various sources over time using the unique Swedish identity number enhances the richness of datasets. With data ownership spread across national and regional databases, disease-specific quality registries, hospital-level data, biobanks, and researcher-generated databases, Sweden offers abundant opportunities for registry-based RWE studies. In particular, having in-depth hospital-level data is a valuable asset, facilitating the possibility of building well-designed external control arms.
Sweden is a highly dynamic environment for RWE studies in Nordic
Swedish registers also provide information on administrative data such as pricing of pharmaceuticals and medical operations. The readily available data on sick leaves with ICD-10 codes and socioeconomic factors enables exploration of illness-related leave from work, patients’ educational backgrounds, household income, etc.
“Sweden is a highly dynamic environment aiming to continuously keep its position among the top and to develop into a globally leading RWE generation country for pharma market, innovation and research. Therefore, monitoring Sweden’s progress closely is advisable for pharma companies”, says Medaffcon´s Lead RWE epidemiologist Johanna Simin.
Medaffcon’s strengths as a partner for RWE studies in Nordic countries:
Highly experienced health economics, market access, and RWE professionals as experts
Experts with backgrounds from leading positions in pharmaceutical companies. Excellent understanding of the needs and business perspectives of the pharmaceutical industry in RWE studies
Experts with broad academic backgrounds and current academic affiliations to continuously strengthen the scientific perspective of RWE projects
A strong data analysis team dedicated to applying state-of-the-art methods for data analysis in RWE studies
Experienced professionals evaluating that the data is fit for purpose and suitable for the objectives, facilitating the possibility of drawing meaningful inferences from the obtained results
High capacity to conduct projects (i.e., timely delivery, start ASAP, etc.)
The Nordic countries provide an excellent environment to assess market access opportunities for pharma industry. In Sweden and Finland, a pharma company can quickly and smoothly determine the number of patients, the standard of care, the products of competitors in the market, their weaknesses and limitations, as well as where competitors’ products are used.
Fast access for pharma companies to Nordic RWE data
Aggregate-level national real-world evidence (RWE) data in Sweden can be obtained in 1-5 days. Ethical approval is not required.
Includes data for pharma companies on:
For an a priori defined patient population:
Number of patients
Gender distribution
Age distribution
Place of residence/region(geographical distribution)
Top 20 diagnoses (in- and outpatient care)
Top 20 prescription drug usage
Prescriber information
Top 20 surgical procedures
Aggregate-level national RWE data in Sweden and Finland can be obtained in 2-4 months.
Procedures(in- and specialized outpatient care, day surgery)
Medications: outpatient prescriptions and in-hospital administered drugs
A tailored request can be made depending on the client’s needs.
With this information, clients can make decisions about market entry very quickly. Fast access also rapidly provides the information needed for discussions with authorities regarding ongoing market access processes.
Petri joined Medaffcon in 2022 as a consultant. Petri holds extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry especially in Market Access, sales and marketing. Before joining Medaffcon Petri worked in various managerial roles in the pharmaceutical industry which has provided him with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the field. Petri conducted his BBA studies in the Netherlands and Finland providing him with a great basis to work in international organizations.
Petri’s extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry and his background in business equip him with a unique perspective in the field of Life Science and commercialization of medicines in Finland. His main focus is on helping companies bring Life Science innovations and services to the Finnish market. Petri’s expertise in Market Access, sales and marketing as well as his deep understanding of the pharmaceutical industry provide Medaffcon’s team with valuable information as they provide customer solutions.
“Resource challenges alongside technological development and digitalization provide considerable opportunities to enhance healthcare in Finland. As data collection and digitalization develop, the effectiveness of health technologies can be demonstrated more precisely. While advanced health technologies and medicine offer more effective treatments, bringing them to the market require special know-how and understanding. Thus, companies, the research sector and governmental agencies should continue to further co-operation in effectively bringing health technologies and medicines to the market while simultaneously managing resource allocation in a rational manner.”
Dr Johanna Simin joined Medaffcon in May 2023. She is a trained epidemiologist based in Sweden. She obtained her master’s and doctoral degrees from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, where she continued her work as a post-doctoral researcher focusing mainly on the long-term effects of prescription drugs. Her international projects have been based on high-quality Swedish health data registries, many of the cohorts being globally among the largest. She has broad experience in international collaborations between leading universities and pharmaceutical companies and has supervised postgraduate students nationally and internationally.
“What drives me is the purpose of my work – I believe in enhancing health with big data. Here, the Nordics offer incomparable real-world possibilities”.
