NEW YORK, Jan. 28, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- COTA Inc. (Cancer Outcomes Tracking and Analysis) and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation have entered into an innovative collaboration with a goal to improve patient outcomes, enhance the efficiency of cancer care and accelerate discovery and development of new treatments. Eric Schultz, COTA CEO said, “As we enter the age of personalized medicine in oncology, both our companies are aligned on ensuring the 'right patients get the right medicines at the right times' thus improving outcomes for patients and enhancing efficiency. The collaboration also has the potential to increase the pace of discovery so more effective therapies can be brought to market faster for patients.”
The collaboration focuses on the use of real-world data to study clinical and economic outcomes across a number of cancer types. COTA has developed a breakthrough, patent-pending system for classifying cancer patients, COTA Nodal Addresses (CNA), which enables a sensitive and precise detection of variance in chosen treatments, clinical outcomes and costs. Andrew Pecora M.D FACP CPE founder of COTA and inventor of the technology said, “For any given cancer therapy, less than 100% of patients will receive the ideal therapy and a limited percentage of patients who do receive ideal therapy will respond and gain a measurable benefit. What makes these patients different from those that do not respond? These are the types of questions we will tackle in this collaboration, and that will provide opportunities for providers to reduce variance in treatment and patients to see better outcomes.”
COTA has unparalleled depth in the economics of oncology and has extensive involvement in enabling value-based reimbursement models with various payers across the country. The reimbursement model in oncology is currently in the process of moving from fee-for-service to value-based models and it is critical to ensure there is a focus on optimizing both clinical outcomes and cost as this transition occurs. The collaboration with Novartis is a first of its kind with its focus of using real-world data to evaluate clinical and economic outcomes. COTA provides the first and best path to value-based care for oncologists through CNAs which enable one to determine whether the difference in outcomes was a result of biologic differences in the tumor itself or from differences in practice patterns across physicians. This has potential to support real-time discovery while helping providers improve clinical performance and quality.
About COTA
Developed by world-leading oncologists COTA, has developed the unique CNA (COTA Nodal Address) System to precisely classify cancer patients into meaningful clinical and prognostic cohorts. Using this sorting technique, COTA is able to account for the biologic variances of cancer, thus permitting more in-depth analyses of treatment variances. This enables doctors and health plans to improve patient care and move from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement models. COTA arms providers, patients and payers with the actionable, real-time insights needed to improve clinical outcomes, while reducing the costs. Based in New York City, the Company’s mission is to enable optimal care for every cancer patient. To learn more about COTA, call (866) 648-3833 or visit www.oncota.com