WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Seven leading
diagnostics companies and laboratory service providers have
formed the Access to Comprehensive Genomic Profiling Coalition
(ACGP). The goal of the organization is to collectively advocate
for appropriate broad U.S. health insurance coverage of
comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) for patients living with
advanced cancer. The current members of ACGP are Exact Sciences
(NASDAQ: EXAS), Foundation Medicine, Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN),
LabCorp (NYSE: LH), QIAGEN (NYSE: QGEN), Roche Diagnostics (SIX:
RO, ROG: OTCQX: RHHBY), and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:
TMO).
CGP testing performed soon after a diagnosis of advanced
cancer better informs medical management, including treatment
decisions and patient care, which can improve clinical outcomes. In
advocating for coverage of CGP, ACGP will educate health insurers
and other healthcare stakeholders about the clinical utility and
economic value of CGP.
CGP tests assess the genomic alterations within a patient's
cancer to help physicians make more informed decisions about
personalized treatment approaches. Using next-generation sequencing
(NGS) with a tissue biopsy or a blood sample, this testing method
can detect the four main classes of alterations known to drive
cancer growth: base substitutions, insertions and deletions, copy
number alterations (CNAs), and rearrangements or fusions. These
tests can reveal clinically relevant alterations and biomarkers in
the tumor's DNA and RNA. This helps identify patients who could
respond to specific targeted therapies and immunotherapy that can
be more effective and may have fewer side effects. Healthcare
professionals can use CGP to help predict patient benefit across
multiple targeted therapies and cancer indications, with benefits
in progression-free survival for patients with non-small cell lung
cancer (NSCLC) as one example.1
"Cancer is a disease of the genome, not solely the tissue. Tumor
profiling has evolved tremendously in the last decade," said
Jim Almas, MD, vice president and
national medical director of clinical effectiveness
at LabCorp, and the chairman of ACGP. "The manufacturers and
laboratories forming the coalition have produced incredible assays
to help identify the mutations driving advanced cancers, leading
patients to better care through targeted cancer
treatments."
Despite evidence of the benefits of this approach, some health
insurers still use an outdated framework to evaluate coverage for
CGP, creating a disparity in access across patient populations.
Many commercial insurance plans do not cover this type of testing,
while public or government plans like Medicare do. Limited
insurance coverage options may prevent some treating physicians
from ordering CGP for their patients.
"There is no question that obstacles to coverage have inhibited
physicians from ordering comprehensive genomic profiling," said
Almas. "Additionally, we believe some clinicians are not aware
of the advantages of a comprehensive testing approach and the
benefits of one CGP test to provide genomic profiling, detect
microsatellite instability and tumor mutational burden, and help
physicians identify clinical trials for which patients may be
candidates."
To learn more about ACGP, go to www.accesstoCGP.com
1: Singal G, Miller PG, Agarwala V, et al. Association of
Patient Characteristics and Tumor Genomics With Clinical Outcomes
Among Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Using a
Clinicogenomic
Database. JAMA. 2019;321(14):1391-1399.
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SOURCE Access to Comprehensive Genomic Profiling