Atropos Health, a company specializing in real-world data, is at the forefront of two booming sectors: real-world evidence research and artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2019 as a spin-off from Stanford University’s “Green Button” technology, Atropos Health offers a consultation service that provides doctors with real-world evidence to support clinical decisions. This technology can quickly answer clinical questions, such as determining the most effective drug for certain cancer patients.
Last fall, Atropos Health introduced Geneva OS, a new operating system, and a chatbot interface named ChatRWD. These tools help generate observational studies quickly and at scale. According to the company, ChatRWD reduces the time needed to produce high-quality real-world evidence from months to minutes using a chat-based AI assistant.
Atropos Health recently secured $33 million in series B funding to support its mission of closing the evidence gap in healthcare.
There is a significant evidence gap in healthcare treatment guidelines, with doctors often relying on their judgment. A 2017 BMJ study found that only 18% of clinical recommendations by primary care physicians are based on current evidence. Most care guidelines and payer decisions are influenced by clinical trials, which exclude about 70% of the U.S. population, according to Brigham Hyde, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Atropos Health.
“Fortunately, there is an abundance of healthcare data available,” Hyde said. “With the adoption of electronic medical records and cloud storage, we can now convert this data into high-quality evidence on a large scale.”
Observational research on real-world data is not new, but it usually takes weeks or months to produce publication-grade evidence. Hyde, along with Nigam Shah, Ph.D., and Saurabh Gombar, M.D., Ph.D., developed the Green Button technology at Stanford to harness the vast amounts of data in electronic medical records for clinical decision-making. This technology is the foundation of Atropos Health’s Geneva OS.
The system accesses hundreds of millions of de-identified patient records, runs analyses using statistical methods, and formats the results into observational study reports. These studies, which traditionally take weeks or months, can now be completed much faster.
“We’ve scaled this technology for use in patient care, research, policy, and life sciences,” Hyde said.
The new funding will support the development of Atropos Health’s generative AI capabilities. The company launched its AI-driven chatbot, ChatRWD, in beta in late 2023 and plans a full launch this year.
Atropos Health claims that ChatRWD is the first generative AI application to deliver complete observational studies on real-world data in minutes. Its user-friendly interface allows clinicians to use it without needing a data scientist.
