The University of Sydney's School of Pharmacy is examining data gathered by Australian-developed cannabis health app OnTracka to assess the medicine's effectiveness and safety.
Researchers will examine 250,000 data points recorded through the app, looking at how cannabis products perform across different patient age groups, medical conditions and genders.
The study will cover optimal dosing, titration timelines, symptom management, psychedelic consumption patterns, pharmaceutical interactions and safety outcomes.
The findings are expected to produce real-world evidence that contributes to the body of research being assembled by the scientific community and to have "considerable impact" on patient care, access and policy decisions.
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."
Walkaden said working with the School of Pharmacy — rather than having OnTracka conduct its own analysis and release a white paper — lends greater credibility to the research.
"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 forms part of a retrospective study that has received ethics approval from the University of Sydney's Human Research Ethics Committee.
Publication is scheduled for later in 2023.
