One More Step in the Long Road of Precision Medicine

CMS decision removes important barrier for some Medicare cancer patients to access next generation sequencing and companion targeted therapies as well as potential clinical trials.

For any new therapy, diagnostic or device brought forth by our healthcare innovation community, there are three high-level barriers generally encountered on the path to commercialization: Regulatory approval, payment confirmation (generally coverage by public and/or private healthcare payers) and adoption by healthcare providers. For new classes of therapy, such as genetically targeted therapies and their companion diagnostics, there is often a greater challenge to pass regulation, assure coverage and gain adoption since there is little precedent.

As of mid-March, there is new precedent to leverage for gene-based diagnostics and all stakeholders in the development of genomics applications in medicine. Following the November 2017 approval by the FDA of Foundation Medicine‘s FoundationOne CDx, (F1CDx^TM), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a National Coverage Determination (NCD) for diagnostic lab tests that include Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). These first steps were the culmination of a great deal of work by industry players, researchers and regulators. On March 16, 2018, CMS announced a finalized NCD for NGS for Medicare patients with advanced cancer (including Stage III, Stage IV, recurrent, relapsed, refractory or metastatic cancers). These are diagnostic tests that, as companions to other diagnostics, identify treatment options based on certain genetic mutations.

As policymakers and payers take on the burden of cost coverage, the progression of the healthcare sub-industries focused on leveraging patient’s genetic and other “-omic data” will benefit from the step toward better coverage.

The burden of payment for genetic sequencing was a topic of discussion at HIMSS18 among players in the space of gene-based therapy (HIT, providers, etc.). Prior to the CMS coverage decision, patients often had only the option to pay out of pocket for genetic sequencing. Based on this NCD, Medicare patients with advanced cancer have coverage. That coverage will be limited to FDA approved diagnostics, such as F1CDx^TM, but the test results may be used both to match patients with FDA-approved gene-based therapies and to identify patient candidacy for clinical trials of therapies not yet approved by the FDA. This potentially charts a clearer, more predictable path for additional NGS diagnostics in development, not only because of payment and regulatory precedent, but importantly because of the potential to speed up clinical trials for gene-based therapies if candidates are identified more quickly.

Patients diagnosed with cancer, or really any life-threatening condition, want and deserve access to the latest proven advancements in medicine. This NCD marks a big step in patient access and for development of targeted therapies and companion diagnostics. It also brings stakeholders attention to the looming challenge of payment at a systemic level. This remains a primary focus of the discussion among payers and policymakers.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma and other high-ranking government officials have discussed their intentions to curb costs for Medicare and Medicaid specifically related to novel genetically targeted therapies because they come at notably high cost. Therapies of this type can be priced between $300,000 and $500,000, with some reaching as high as $1 million. CMS does not negotiate prices, so its efforts to reduce the cost burden are focused on alterations to the format of payment for state agencies and managed care organizations who do. Some concepts floated by officials include paying less for a given drug based on the target indication used with a patient, or paying for high-cost drugs over a longer period of time. The CMS final NCD for genetic sequencing diagnostics only further brings this cost challenge to the forefront.

As policymakers and payers take on the burden of cost coverage, the progression of the healthcare sub-industries focused on leveraging patient’s genetic and other “-omic data” will benefit from the step toward better coverage. However slow and bumpy the progress may seem, expect to see continued or accelerated investment in diagnostics and therapy by both public research sources as well as private equity.

As these areas of investment continue, HIT vendors will have an opportunity to differentiate. Cancer in particular offers a slightly more carved out business channel for vendors to target with specialized solutions and a big market to warrant the investment. Cancer patients often have large care teams to manage, often have greater needs to make contact with the care team or show up for therapy and have a lot of test results to manage. EHR systems, telehealth companies, care management, risk-based business models and other subsets of HIT all have an opportunity for differentiation within this specialized care community.

Vendors such as Flatiron, recently acquired by Roche for $1.9 Billion, Syapse, 2bPrecise, Orion Health and others have taken early focused steps both with respect to “Precision Medicine” and to advancements in oncology care (as the CMS NCD specifically pertains to). Healthcare IT vendors, with this NCD, have yet another signal to consider the role of genomic and other comparable complex data types in their systems.

Here are a few specific applications to keep an eye on related to this evolution:

• EHR systems should have workflows to manage needs of patients who can benefit from existing gene-based therapies. This may or may not include more complete sources of “-omic data,” but the trend will be to gather more insights from these kinds of data even if not maintained directly within the EHR.
• HCOs with IT infrastructure and processes to help patients identify potential alignment with clinical trials should consider how they will add to their existing systems to include genomic sequencing and facilitate candidacy evaluation based on findings of such diagnostic information.
• HCOs should consider how they will properly educate and inform the patient and relevant members of the care team with respect to NGS.
• HCOs should consider how factors related to NGS will be communicated across the care team.

As NGS data becomes more readily available and expected as a component of care, analysis and facilitating utility of these complex forms of data will be an opportunity for competitive advantage.