The US Food and Drug Administration defines real world data or RWD as “data relating to patient health status and/or the delivery of health care routinely collected from a variety of sources.” (https://www.fda.gov/science-research/science-and-research-special-topics/real-world-evidence) As per the definition of RWD, there are several examples of RWD, which are not limited to: electronic health records, medical claims data, data from product or disease registries, and life-log data gathered from digital health technologies such as wearable devices. I will briefly go over the history of RWD applications to drug development and regulations and introduce the audience to the reason why RWD has received much attention recently. Then, I will share several examples where I as a clinical pharmacologist was able to use RWD to generate the important safety and efficacy information of drugs in the real world setting, i.e., RWE. I will conclude my talk by giving some thoughts about the future perspectives with regard to the use RWD in drug development regulation.