ISSUE: In our increasingly connected world, patients find information and support from their peers online, via social media and forums. These platforms provide a rich tapestry of lived patient experiences, capturing potentially valuable insights on topics such as disease burden, quality of life, and treatment outcomes. Until recently, the information within social media platforms remained under-utilised; however, capturing these data via social media listening (SML) has garnered attention as an assessable, low-burden, real-time source of real-world data (RWD). Historically, barriers to the wider adoption of SML have included lack of acceptance/guidance from key stakeholders, challenges with handling large unstructured data, and issues regarding bias, user privacy and content reliability. However, SML is now regaining attention with the advent of new evidence standard frameworks for digital health technologies and a growing interest in leveraging artificial intelligence to analyse big data, making it timely to re-examine its capacity in enhancing patient-centric real-world evidence. This session examines the promises and limitations of SML as a medium of RWD, sitting at the crossroads of many “hot topics” in the pharmaceutical industry.

OVERVIEW: Siddharth will open with a 5-minute balanced overview of SML as a medium of RWD. Next, Jackie will discuss the mechanics, value, and impact of SML and the use of AI to bring efficiencies to SML analysis. Following this, Mary Jo will examine challenges encountered in the use of AI from a clinical development/operations perspective and illustrate use cases of AI/SML informing adverse event reporting. Finally, Jeanette will provide a decision-maker’s perspective on the evidence standards that SML would need to meet to be useful for health technology assessment and acceptable use cases. Speakers are each allotted 10-minutes, followed by 20-minutes discussion time with audience participation encouraged throughout. Stakeholders from academia, industry and patient advisory groups would benefit from attending.