Emerging medical data sources must be validated, authorities say

Europe’s medical regulators are “optimistic” about using devices such as smartphones to improve disease treatment

Senior officials from the European Medicines Agency and national regulatory bodies have said that health data sources such as smartphones and wearable sensors could help to improve disease treatments—but only once technical, procedural and regulatory challenges have been overcome.

EMA staff including executive director Guido Rasi co-authored a paper on the need for “controlled and transparent” validation of novel analytical methods. It was published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics on 3 October.