We are a ways away = we have a quite long way to go?

Context:

Dr. Atri said that the study raises questions that need to be addressed further, including the effect of antidementia medications, vitamins and dietary supplements, vascular risk factors, behavioral symptoms, physical findings, especially parkinsonism and extrapyramidal signs, and genetic susceptibility factors, such as APOE-e4 status.

“We are a way away still, but we desperately need to be wiser and more efficient in our approaches to gathering and using clinical data," Dr. Atri said. "I agree that clinical trials should heed Dr. Doody’s findings and incorporate more data and approaches like this to minimize risk of imbalances between or within treatment groups that can easily obscure signals of efficacy in Alzheimer's disease trials.”