Udemy
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
    •  
Turn what you know into an opportunity and reach millions around the world.
Learn More
Your cart is empty.
Keep shopping
Real-World Evidence (RWE) in Pharma: From Data to Access
Rating: 3.9 out of 5(20 ratings)
151 students

Real-World Evidence (RWE) in Pharma: From Data to Access

Study design, propensity scores, survival, DiD, IV and HTA use - with working R and Python code you run yourself
Last updated 8/2026
English
English [Auto],

What you'll learn

  • Define real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE), and explain why they matter to regulators, payers, clinicians, patients, and industry
  • Identify key RWD sources (EHR, claims, registries, devices) and judge data quality and fitness for purpose
  • Design fit-for-purpose real-world studies with clear estimands while preventing bias and confounding
  • Apply core methods: propensity scores, survival analysis, DiD/ITS, IVs, and modern causal ML
  • Build reproducible, audit-ready pipelines from raw data to results using R/Python and version control
  • Prepare regulatory-grade protocols, SAPs, and traceability packages aligned to EMA/FDA expectations
  • Use RWE across the product lifecycle: feasibility, label expansion, PASS, and pharmacovigilance
  • Quantify value with RWE for HEOR: burden, cost-effectiveness, and budget impact to support access
  • Navigate privacy, ethics, and governance (GDPR/HIPAA) and address fairness and equity in datasets
  • Communicate RWE results clearly to clinical, regulatory, and payer audiences and defend decisions

Course content

10 sections52 lectures6h 52m total length
  • Why Real-World Evidence? - gaps left by RCTs, rising demand8:49

    Learn how real world evidence complements randomized trials by turning real world data—electronic health records, claims, registries, and patient generated information—into regulator-ready insights.

  • Key Definitions & Taxonomy – RWE, RWD, real-world data subtypes10:20

    Explore how real world data from claims, electronic health records, registries, and wearables becomes real world evidence through transparent, fit-for-purpose study designs.

  • Historical Milestones & Landmark Cases8:44

    Real world evidence moved from a curious bystander to a trusted regulator-aligned witness through policy, technology, common data models, and privacy preserving analytics.

  • Stakeholders & Value Propositions – regulators, payers, clinicians, patients8:53

    Position real world evidence as a common language that aligns regulators, payers, clinicians, and patients through transparent design, governance, and robust data to support faster, smarter access.

  • Learning Toolkit: Slides and Video Scripts0:01
  • Quiz 1 - RWE Foundations and Context

Requirements

  • No prior RWE experience is required. A basic grasp of clinical research/epidemiology and medical terminology helps, as does comfort with spreadsheets. Familiarity with R or Python is a plus but not necessary. You should be able to read scientific abstracts, interpret charts/tables, and have foundational statistics literacy (bias, confidence intervals, p-values, regression). A computer with reliable internet—and the ability to install free tools if desired—is recommended. Openness to privacy/ethics concepts (GDPR/HIPAA), regular study time, and curiosity will set you up for success. Course language: English.

Description

Real-world evidence is now assessed by regulators and payers as seriously as trial evidence - and judged by the same standards. This course teaches the design and the analysis, and gives you the code to run every method yourself.

Six and a half hours across ten modules, 52 lectures, and a complete R and Python analysis toolkit built on a synthetic dataset where the true answer is known, so you can check whether a method actually recovered it.

What you will be able to do

  • Design a study that survives review. Cohort and case-control designs, emulating a target trial, pragmatic versus explanatory questions, external and synthetic control arms, and the biases that quietly destroy observational comparisons.

  • Judge data before you analyse it. Electronic health records, claims, registries and devices; completeness, provenance and fitness for purpose; the OMOP and FHIR data models.

  • Run the methods. Propensity score matching and inverse probability weighting with balance diagnostics, time-to-event and survival analysis, difference-in-differences, interrupted time series, instrumental variables, and quantitative bias analysis.

  • Meet regulatory and HTA expectations. What EMA, FDA, NICE and other assessment bodies look for in a real-world study, and how to prepare protocols and statistical analysis plans that anticipate their questions.

  • Use RWE where it earns its keep. Feasibility, label expansion, post-authorisation safety studies, pharmacovigilance, burden of disease, cost-effectiveness and budget impact for market access.

  • Handle governance properly. GDPR and HIPAA, consent and secondary use, fairness and equity in datasets, and the documentation that makes work reproducible.

The analysis toolkit

Downloadable, and every script has been executed end to end before publication. Six Python scripts and three R scripts, with a synthetic cohort, a panel dataset and a monthly time series - plus an answer key stating the true effects planted in the data.

  • Target trial emulation, and a demonstration of the immortal time bias created by defining exposure with information from the future

  • Propensity scores: caliper matching, stabilised and truncated weights, standardised mean differences, common support

  • Survival analysis: Kaplan-Meier, Cox, the proportional hazards test, restricted mean survival time, absolute risk and number needed to treat

  • Difference-in-differences with cluster-robust errors and a parallel-trends test; interrupted time series with seasonality

  • Instrumental variables: first-stage F, two-stage least squares, bootstrap intervals, and what a local average treatment effect actually is

  • Sensitivity analysis: E-values, negative control outcomes, rule-out analysis and specification robustness

Why the synthetic data matters. The true hazard ratio is 0.75 and confounding by indication is planted deliberately, so a naive comparison reports 1.03 and concludes the drug does nothing. Every correct method in the toolkit moves that estimate back towards the truth. You see the failure and the fix, on the same data, in the same session.

The R scripts depend only on base R and the survival package, which ships with every standard installation. The Python scripts install from a single requirements file. No paid software, no licences, no cloud account.

Who this is for. HEOR, market access, epidemiology, biostatistics, medical affairs and regulatory professionals who need to design, run, commission or critically read real-world studies. If you have ever been handed a database study and asked whether to believe it, this course is aimed at you.

Who this course is for:

  • Biopharma professionals across Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory Affairs, HEOR/Market Access, and RWE functions.
  • Biostatisticians, epidemiologists, and data scientists/engineers working with health data who need RWE fluency.
  • Clinicians, payers, consultants, and health-tech/analytics vendors who use, commission, or evaluate RWE.
  • Graduate students and professionals switching into RWE from adjacent fields (public health, health economics, informatics).