In our age of the Covid pandemic, the world’s aspirations are pinned on the pharmaceutical industry. With the emergence of new viruses every year, big data analytics plays a key role in drug and vaccine development. Data collected from countries hit by Covid-19, such as total number of cases, intensive care requirements, deaths and recovery rates, provide valuable insights into affected demographics, transmission, recovery and management assistance.
Data science contributes to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in a number of ways. Some prominent examples include using data in clinical trials, accelerating drug discovery and development, and treating patients. During clinical trials of new drugs, the data collected is processed to understand individual outcomes based on age, gender, medical history and other factors. Doctors look at a patient’s existing illnesses and medical history before recommending any medication.
For decades, the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries have used analytics to understand and predict the risks of new drugs and treatments. But what if one of the controversial treatments becomes a legal issue? Wouldn’t it be prudent for pharmaceutical consultants to apply these same types of analysis to understand and predict their legal risks?
In the relatively recent past, pharmaceutical litigation relied almost entirely on legal research, the expertise of seasoned attorneys, and anecdotal data shared among litigators to prepare and win cases. Legal research is still very important and can tell you the legal principles that apply to a particular case.But if you want to learn, that’s only part of the puzzle how Principles are applied.
Using the right advanced technology, litigation analytics can provide insights into previously unknowable legal cases and trends. The right technology can enhance legal advice, develop improved litigation strategies, and ultimately win more cases.
A data-driven approach to litigation strategy
Using Litigation Analytics, pharma consultants can learn about the type of case actually litigated, the length of the action, the person representing opposing parties, the jury or court verdict, and the damages awarded.
Legal analysis can also provide the opposing party’s detailed litigation history, allowing lawyers to understand the client’s strategy and litigation outcome. By leveraging this information, both in-house counsel and their outside counsel can better predict how long a case is likely to take, how much it will cost, what damage is likely to be inflicted, what tactics their adversaries are likely to employ, what whether such planned actions are likely to be successful, and many other important considerations.
For example, legal analysis of pharmaceutical litigation brings data-driven insights into pharmaceutical cases pending in federal district courts from 2009 to the present. This module contains over 485,000 dispute cases (including class actions) using the keyword “pharmaceuticals”. It covers a wide range of case types including product liability, patents and trademarks, contract disputes and employment issues.
These cases all come from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), which creates a database of millions of court documents filed electronically in every district court case since 2009. By analyzing this database using a hybrid process of machine learning and expert legal analysts, enhancing and classifying each case with accurate forensic findings and damages, you will get very valuable results. This puts a wealth of information at their fingertips: With just a few mouse clicks, users can gather legal insights that previously would have taken a large number of expensive lawyers weeks or months to complete.
Unique case type distinction
A good legal analysis will include coding the most common types of pharmaceutical litigation, but the word search feature can uncover cases involving many other niche case types that can be analyzed individually, including ANDAs, Robinson-Patman Act claims, specific medical device disputes and employment matters. Keyword searches combined with 50 additional case tabs covering findings, damages and remedies enable users to locate and analyze cases involving issues of interest and relevant case types.
This method of legal analysis allows users to easily access the docket and actual court documents for each case by simply clicking on the case name. Access to pleadings and rulings allows users to determine the strategies the parties employed in each case, whether those strategies were successful, and how the facts compare to their own cases. Understanding exactly what leads to a successful case outcome enables attorneys to develop better litigation strategies.
Another great advantage that litigation analysis brings is its ability to conduct a detailed study of a specific court or judge. For example, let’s say I’m an attorney in a newly filed case involving a product liability claim in the Eastern District of Louisiana (EDLa.), but my practice is centered in Chicago. When my clients ask me for information about jurisdictions, I can use Litigation Analytics to find data for that court, especially cases involving such specific matters.
Strategic Advantages of Pharmaceutical Consultants
Legal analytics has become an essential tool to help companies and their legal advisors make smarter, faster, data-driven business and legal decisions. Of course, the technology surrounding legal analysis is having a profound impact on the way companies and their law firms approach legal practice. Given the scope and complexity of pharmaceutical cases and the breadth of policy types available in the market today, all parties in the pharmaceutical industry will greatly benefit from the use of litigation analysis.
Pharmaceutical law firms will also increasingly use litigation analytics to become better lawyers, and new applications of legal analytics in the pharmaceutical industry may emerge. At the same time, in an industry that already relies heavily on data and predictive analytics models to evaluate new drugs and treatments, legal analytics is a welcome addition to the existing toolsets of pharmaceutical professionals and their advisors.
Photo: Black Gamble, Getty Images
