Data collected by Australian-developed cannabis health app OnTracka is being studied by Sydney University’s School of Pharmacy to determine the effectiveness and safety of the medicine.
Researchers will analyse 250,000 data points captured through the app on the effectiveness of cannabis products by patient age, medical condition and gender.
It will study ideal dosing, titration times, symptom management, psychedelic consumption of patients, pharmaceutical interactions and safety data.
The results are expected to deliver robust real-world data to add to the body of evidence being collated by researchers and have “considerable impact” on shaping patient care, access and policy.
OnTracka chief executive Chad Walkaden said: “OnTracka has always been built on trust and integrity so the decision to provide this information to the University of Sydney without any commercial gain is evidence of [our] intention to be a trusted data-generating platform that patients can anonymously use to contribute to the future of healthcare.”
Partnering with the School of Pharmacy, rather than OnTracka analysing the data itself and publishing a white paper, adds credibility to the study, he added.
“The best option for patients and the wider industry is for one of the leading universities in Australia to have complete independence on their reporting and analysis of the de-identified data provided,” Walkaden said.
The data is part of a retrospective study that has ethics approval by the University of Sydney’s Human Research Ethics Committee.
It is scheduled to be published later in 2023.
