MarketScan Research Databases

MarketScan Research Databases, offered by Merative, is a suite of longitudinal, fully-adjudicated real-world data (RWD) products designed for health researchers, life sciences companies, and healthcare analysts. The databases are employer-sourced and research-grade, covering commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid populations, and are accessible securely via Snowflake. The platform is used by pharmaceutical and biotech organizations to support studies including burden of illness, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), epidemiology, regulatory submissions, and budget impact modeling.

The core offering consists of three closed claims databases, supplemented by a catalog of linked specialty databases that add clinical, economic, and productivity-based dimensions to the patient record.

Core Claims Databases

• MarketScan Commercial Database: Employer-sourced claims data covering the under-65 working population and their dependents. Includes actual cost data and supports studies such as burden of illness, pricing and reimbursement submissions, and budget impact modeling.
• MarketScan Medicare Supplemental Database: Integrates inpatient and outpatient claims with drug, lab, dental, and enrollment data for retirees. Covers Medicare Supplemental, Medicare Advantage, and retiree coordination of benefits plans. Sourced from over 50 contributors across employers and health plans.
• MarketScan Multi-State Medicaid Database: Contains medical, surgical, and prescription drug experience of Medicaid enrollees under fee-for-service and managed care plans. Supports research into health equity, social determinants of health (SDoH), and conditions prevalent in Medicaid populations such as mental health, maternal health, and HIV/AIDS.

Linked Specialty Databases

• Linked Claims + EHRs (by MarketScan and Veradigm): Links claims data with electronic health records to provide a deeper view of patient journeys, healthcare utilization, clinical findings, and costs. Supports HEOR, epidemiology analyses, regulatory requirements, and validation exercises.
• MarketScan Mortality Database: Integrates vital mortality data — including year and month of death — with enrollment and claims data. Enables evaluation of mortality as a study outcome and supports regulatory submissions, epidemiological research, and HEOR.
• MarketScan Health and Productivity Management (HPM) Database: Provides insight into direct medical costs and indirect costs from productivity loss for patients and caregivers following diagnosis or during treatment. Includes longitudinal records used to study illness-related productivity loss.
• MarketScan Lab Results Database: Incorporates laboratory test results alongside enrollment data to improve the clinical picture. Used to evaluate drug effectiveness, identify safety signals, and analyze differences in treatment patterns based on disease control status.
• MarketScan Health Risk Assessment Database: Contains self-reported biometric and health-related behavioral data. Includes medical and drug claims, absence, short-term disability, and workers' compensation data to support analysis of health and productivity in patient cohorts.
• MarketScan Dental Database: Links dental claims with medical claims, enabling analysis of the impact of dental care on overall healthcare spend, access to dental care by payer, and the relationship between medical comorbidities and dental health outcomes.
• MarketScan Benefit Plan Design Database: Contains detailed benefit plan characteristics for a subset of health plans in the Commercial and Medicare Supplemental Databases. Supports evaluation of health plan design on utilization, treatment adherence, and costs including copayments, deductibles, and coverage options.
• MarketScan Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) Database: Integrates race/ethnicity, education, income, poverty, and urban/rural classification data with enrollment and claims data from the Commercial and Medicare Databases. Allows researchers to evaluate non-medical, community-level factors on health outcomes and longevity.

Data Access and Analytics Capabilities

• Data is delivered as pre-configured, well-maintained datasets accessible on Snowflake's cloud platform, reducing infrastructure costs and supporting compliance.
• Researchers can link their own existing datasets to MarketScan data for stronger longitudinal patient records.
• Native analytical capabilities support high-level analysis, cohort identification, and trend exploration.
• Data can be connected to Tableau, Power BI, and other SQL-compatible tools to generate actionable insights.
• The platform supports collaboration across projects and reports, with customizations available for both technical and non-technical users.
• Merative reports 60% cost savings when data is accessed via Snowflake compared to legacy systems, and up to 10x faster access to research-ready data.

MarketScan Services

• A team of over 40 MarketScan experts is available to support study acceleration and delivery of insights.
• Services are structured around three areas: expediting research through life sciences expertise, enhancing decision-making by navigating complex data, and guiding researchers through data to support innovation.

MarketScan Research Databases are used by leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Boehringer Ingelheim, as well as academic institutions conducting longitudinal real-world data studies. The platform is hosted on Snowflake, supporting secure, cloud-based access with compliance considerations built in.