Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals (BIPI); WellPoint, an Indiana-based, U.S. health benefit company; and HealthCore, a Wilmington, Del.-based wholly-owned subsidiary of WellPoint, are launching a research project to identify and address unmet medical needs.

The first stage of the project will focus on non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) and will examine disease prevalence, treatment complications, such as hospital readmissions, and the use of evidence-based guidelines. This project is the first under the parties’ five-year research collaboration agreement, signed earlier this year.

Information gathered through the NVAF project is intended to provide the basis for the collaborative development of healthcare interventions, which can be evaluated within WellPoint’s affiliated health plans and provider networks.

“This collaborative approach allows us to look at problems collectively,” said Mark Cziraky, vice president of research of HealthCore. “It’s this holistic approach to identifying the needs of all stakeholders that will allow us to produce the kind of information used to develop therapies and interventions that provide the most value to members, providers, insurers and medical product developers and manufacturers.”

The five-year collaboration will enable HealthCore, WellPoint and BIPI to generate real-world evidence and develop health economic and outcomes data to inform the development and evaluation of new medicines, guidelines and interventions. Together, the companies plan to explore issues related to appropriate use of existing and new therapies and interventions and the impact these have on clinical and economic outcomes that matter the most to patients.

BIPI and HealthCore are focusing on NVAF first because the entry of newer anticoagulant therapies, after more than five decades of warfarin use, presents an important opportunity to understand how NVAF is being managed in a new era of treatment.

“At Boehringer Ingelheim, our mission is to create medicines that offer real value to patients, payers and providers in an ever-changing healthcare environment,” said Jeff Huth, senior vice president, Managed Markets, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. “In order to best serve patients and key customers, we must better understand how medications are being used in real clinical settings, how disease management is evolving, where there are gaps in care and adherence and whether medical guidelines are being followed.”