There's been significant buzz around the possibility of Roche selling Flatiron, and honestly, I'm...

There's been significant buzz around the possibility of Roche selling Flatiron, and honestly, I'm not entirely surprised.

Transitioning to a truly data-driven, Real-World Evidence (RWE)-focused business model is no small feat for large pharma companies, and Roche has bigger fish to fry right now.

However, Roche's ownership also raises an important question: Can a Health Tech company fully owned by a big pharma be trusted by its competitors in the industry? While I personally believe these fears are often overrated, trust remains a critical factor in this sector.

Moreover, the RWE business model is still evolving. There's no doubt that we should be accelerating our adoption of RWE, but the key issue of who gets paid what within the health data and RWE value chain remains unresolved.

This brings us to the bigger picture: Who will ultimately emerge as the leader in the large-scale RWE and curated healthcare data space? My bet is that it won't be a pharma company. Could it be Big Tech, with their deep expertise in data management? Or perhaps large EMR players? Or will we see an entirely new industry category arise?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts—who do you think will take the lead in this critical space?