Target RWE and NoviSci Rebrand as Pedestal Health and Headwater Science
Target RWE and NoviSci have announced a major rebranding initiative as the two organizations position themselves to reshape how evidence is generated and applied across the life sciences industry. Under the new identities, Target RWE will now operate as Pedestal Health, while NoviSci will become Headwater Science.
Although the companies will continue to operate as distinct organizations, the rebranding effort reflects a broader strategic alignment centered on creating what the companies describe as a modern evidence-generation engine capable of addressing increasingly complex scientific, regulatory, and healthcare challenges. Together, Pedestal Health and Headwater Science aim to support pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and healthcare organizations with continuous, data-driven evidence generation designed to accelerate research, improve regulatory decision-making, and ultimately enhance patient care.
The announcement highlights growing momentum across the healthcare industry toward more integrated and longitudinal evidence-generation strategies. Traditional clinical research models have often relied on isolated studies conducted independently for individual regulatory or commercial questions. However, advances in real-world data, artificial intelligence, longitudinal analytics, and precision medicine are increasingly driving demand for evidence systems capable of generating continuous insights across broader patient populations and therapeutic settings.
The newly branded organizations are aligned around that evolving vision. According to the companies, the goal is not simply to conduct individual studies, but rather to establish a scalable evidence infrastructure that continuously accumulates insights over time and supports more responsive healthcare decision-making.
Pedestal Health, formerly known as Target RWE, will continue to focus on full-service evidence generation for life sciences organizations. The company specializes in building scientifically rigorous, regulatory-ready longitudinal datasets that can support a wide range of evidence needs, including traditional real-world evidence studies, externally controlled trials, and prospective clinical research programs.
The organization has developed expertise across several therapeutic areas, including liver disease, dermatology, and gastroenterology. By integrating longitudinal patient data and advanced evidence-generation approaches, Pedestal Health aims to provide regulatory-grade insights capable of informing both clinical development and healthcare delivery decisions.
Company leadership emphasized that the organization’s focus extends beyond simply collecting data. Instead, Pedestal Health is positioning itself as a strategic evidence-generation partner capable of translating highly complex healthcare information into actionable insights for regulators, researchers, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical companies.
The use of real-world evidence has expanded significantly in recent years as regulators and industry stakeholders increasingly recognize the value of data generated outside of traditional randomized clinical trials. Real-world evidence may include information derived from electronic health records, insurance claims, patient registries, wearable technologies, and other healthcare data sources. Such information can help researchers better understand treatment effectiveness, safety outcomes, disease progression, and healthcare utilization patterns in routine clinical practice.
Pedestal Health’s capabilities are designed to address this growing need for high-quality longitudinal datasets that can support regulatory submissions and evidence-based healthcare decisions. The company believes that continuously updated evidence systems may help reduce delays associated with conventional episodic research models while improving the ability to personalize patient care.
Meanwhile, Headwater Science, formerly NoviSci, will serve as the analytical and methodological engine supporting advanced real-world data research. The company specializes in areas such as causal inference, comparative effectiveness analysis, healthcare utilization studies, economic outcomes research, and regulatory-grade software development.
Headwater Science brings extensive expertise in designing rigorous analytical frameworks intended to ensure that real-world evidence remains scientifically reliable, reproducible, and appropriate for regulatory and clinical applications. The company’s leadership noted that as healthcare data becomes increasingly abundant, the ability to interpret and analyze that data accurately becomes even more important.
One of the major scientific challenges in real-world evidence research involves distinguishing true treatment effects from confounding variables and observational biases. Headwater Science focuses heavily on causal inference methodologies, which are statistical approaches designed to strengthen confidence that observed healthcare outcomes are actually related to treatments rather than unrelated external factors.
The company is also known for its work in comparative effectiveness research, which evaluates how different therapies perform in real-world clinical settings. Such research has become increasingly important for regulators, payers, and healthcare systems seeking evidence regarding the relative value of emerging therapies.
Another key component of Headwater Science’s strategy involves healthcare utilization and expenditure analysis. As healthcare systems worldwide continue to face growing cost pressures, demand has increased for evidence demonstrating not only clinical effectiveness but also economic value and long-term healthcare impact.
The rebranding announcement also highlighted the return of Alan Brookhart to lead Headwater Science during this next phase of growth and development. Brookhart is widely recognized as a leading expert in the development and application of real-world evidence methodologies and has played a major role in advancing analytical standards within the field.
His return signals the company’s commitment to maintaining strong scientific rigor while expanding the application of advanced data science techniques to increasingly complex medical and regulatory questions.
Together, Pedestal Health and Headwater Science represent a central component of the broader vision established by Highlander Health, an organization focused on modernizing healthcare evidence systems and advancing personalized medicine.
Highlander Health was co-founded by industry veterans Amy Abernethy and Brad Hirsch. Both leaders have extensive experience in healthcare innovation, oncology, digital health, regulatory science, and evidence generation.
The two newly branded companies were Highlander Health’s inaugural investments and are intended to help advance the organization’s broader goal of reducing treatment access timelines by approximately 50% through continuous evidence generation and more personalized approaches to healthcare delivery.
According to the companies, the traditional evidence-generation model is increasingly unable to keep pace with the speed and complexity of modern medical innovation. Conventional studies are often launched independently for individual questions, require extensive startup periods, and may produce insights too slowly to influence real-time treatment decisions or accelerate patient access to new therapies.
Amy Abernethy, who serves as co-Chief Executive Officer of both Pedestal Health and Headwater Science, said the existing evidence ecosystem remains heavily dependent on outdated operational structures. She explained that many traditional research programs effectively restart from the beginning each time a new scientific or regulatory question emerges.
Abernethy stated that Pedestal Health and Headwater Science are built around a fundamentally different philosophy in which evidence generation becomes continuous, cumulative, and integrated directly into healthcare decision-making processes from the outset.
Brad Hirsch, also co-Chief Executive Officer of both organizations, added that the rebranding initiative represents far more than a simple corporate name change. According to Hirsch, the transition reflects a broader conviction that the current evidence systems supporting drug development were not designed to meet the needs of today’s rapidly evolving scientific landscape.
The companies believe that integrating longitudinal data generation with advanced analytical methodologies may help transform how evidence is created and applied throughout the healthcare ecosystem. Instead of relying on isolated research efforts, future evidence-generation systems could operate continuously, building richer datasets over time and allowing faster responses to emerging clinical questions.
Industry observers note that this approach aligns closely with broader trends toward precision medicine, decentralized clinical trials, adaptive research designs, and learning healthcare systems. Pharmaceutical companies, regulators, healthcare providers, and payers are increasingly seeking evidence platforms capable of delivering real-time insights while supporting both scientific rigor and operational scalability.
The rebranding of Pedestal Health and Headwater Science will be formally introduced during the ISPOR Annual Meeting taking place from May 17 through May 20 in Philadelphia. Representatives from both organizations are expected to meet with industry stakeholders, discuss their combined vision for evidence modernization, and showcase their capabilities during the conference.
The companies will also host attendees at booth 1111, where they plan to provide additional information regarding their evidence-generation platforms, analytical methodologies, and long-term strategy for supporting the next generation of healthcare research and personalized medicine.
As life sciences organizations continue to confront rising complexity in clinical development, regulatory requirements, and healthcare delivery, the emergence of integrated evidence-generation platforms such as Pedestal Health and Headwater Science may signal a broader transformation in how medical evidence is produced, analyzed, and translated into patient care decisions.
About Pedestal Health
Pedestal Health (formerly Target RWE) combines deep health system partnerships, longitudinal data curation at scale, and modern study design to build continuous, high-quality evidence for life sciences organizations. The company partners with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, providers and payers to generate rigorous, multimodal evidence that supports clinical, regulatory and strategic decision-making across the full lifecycle of care. Pedestal Health is committed to advancing medical decision-making to improve outcomes for patients. Pedestal Health is a Highlander Health company. Learn more at pedestalhealth.com.
About Headwater Science
Headwater Science (formerly NoviSci) is a data science and methods company specializing in principled, reproducible evidence generation for complex clinical and regulatory challenges. With deep expertise in comparative effectiveness, causal inference, healthcare utilization and expenditure research, and regulatory-grade analytical software, Headwater Science provides the methodological foundation that delivers reproducible analytic pipelines, novel epidemiologic and statistical methods, and regulatory-grade software validated to hold up under the most demanding scrutiny. The company works with life sciences organizations as a long-term scientific partner. Headwater Science is a Highlander Health company. Learn more at headwaterscience.com.
About Highlander Health
Highlander Health is focused on advancing evidence generation for the new era of medical innovation. Through an investment portfolio and a platform for learning across care settings, Highlander Health is on a mission to modernize clinical research and care — toward flexible approaches, unlocked capacity, and faster and greater patient impact. Learn more and join in our work to move evidence generation forward at highlanderhealth.com.
