Premier Inc

Denise Juliano

Innovation is the fuel that drives life sciences companies forward, but delivering advancements in today’s environment requires sharp insight and deep collaboration. Life sciences leaders must navigate a complex mix of regulatory requirements, economic pressures and more. They must also fulfill a growing demand for real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE) that demonstrate real-world impact.

Premier Applied Sciences, the data and research division within Premier, rises to the challenge. Leveraging deep expertise and one of the most comprehensive healthcare data repositories, Premier equips organizations with the tools and insights needed to overcome obstacles and deliver measurable healthcare improvements. The Premier Healthcare Database (PHD) empowers life sciences leaders to refine development strategies and make decisions grounded in the realities of care.

We spoke with Denise Juliano, Group Vice President of Premier Applied Sciences, for advice on how life sciences organizations can turn today’s challenges into opportunities for innovation.

Accelerating Trials Through Smarter Data Connections

We’re at a turning point in clinical research. As the number of studies grows and therapies become more personalized, the industry is rethinking how trials are designed, run and scaled — starting with how we identify and engage patients.

RWD and RWE are helping to close longstanding gaps in trial recruitment and design. Today, we can marry deidentified patient datasets with artificial intelligence (AI)- powered machine learning (ML) capable of processing the data at incredible speeds and recognizing meaningful patterns. And natural language processing (NLP) can read and interpret millions of records per hour, opening the door for deep insights in a short amount of time. Instead of relying solely on structured fields in the medical record, NLP allows us to extract clinical insights from unstructured data to more accurately identify patients who meet trial criteria. This matters, especially since disease stage and other details aren’t always captured in standardized formats.

“Innovation demands collaboration. Being open to fresh ideas from within or outside your organization. Taking bold risks and owning the outcome. And together, finding win-win opportunities to move healthcare forward.”

The result? Faster and more precise patient matching, which improves recruitment timelines and reduces the burden on clinical sites.

Collaboration as the New Catalyst for Innovation

In healthcare, no organization innovates alone. Strategic partnerships are the secret sauce. And when you consider the constant regulatory shifts, economic pressures and rising demand for RWE, teamwork is more critical than ever whether you’re optimizing clinical trials or developing new devices or drugs.

That's one reason why, in 2025, Premier partnered with the National Evaluation System for health Technology Coordinating Center (NESTcc) to advance the use of RWD and RWE in medical device evaluation. We also joined the HealthVerity Marketplace as a data source in May 2025, expanding access to RWD for life sciences companies. And of course, everything we do is in service to the healthcare organizations, including life sciences companies and health systems, devoted to improving patients’ lives.

Innovation demands collaboration. Being open to fresh ideas from within or outside your organization. Taking bold risks and owning the outcome. And together, finding win-win opportunities to move healthcare forward.

Keep Learning, Keep Leading

Commit to being a lifelong learner, and if one door closes, look for another one. Just think about how far our industry has come in the fight against conditions that previously had no meaningful treatments, from Alzheimer’s disease to certain types of cancer. A result that looks like a failure today can be tomorrow’s breakthrough.