What is patient-level data?
Patient-level data contain information on individual people including potentially information on demographic characteristics (such as age and sex), comorbidities, treatment histories, and medical histories. When used for research purposes these data are usually deidentified using techniques which theoretically make it impossible (or extremely hard) to re-identify and equate any given observation in the database with a real life person. Sometimes, deidentified patient data is also referred to as anonymized patient level data (APLD). Deidentification is done for a number of reasons including to adhere to patient privacy laws and potentially for ethical reasons as well.

Below is a list of commonly used sources of patient level data in pharma. Clinical registries are also a form of deidentified patient level data which are typically more focused around a particular disease state or treatment history.