One of the exciting frontiers in medical science today is not any one new drug or medical device but the broad and growing applications for personalized medicine. Once the stuff of science fiction, unique therapies that specifically target a patient’s underlying disease or biology are now a reality.
In time, precision medicine has the potential to revolutionize health care. But that potential depends on patients having access to biomarker testing.
Biomarker testing analyzes a patient’s biology at the molecular level. Its findings help physicians diagnose conditions, monitor disease progression, and determine which treatments to prescribe.
To date, biomarker testing has been most often and effectively used in the fight against cancer. It has enabled oncologists to match patients with more effective treatments, avoid side effects, and improve overall outcomes. Millions of patients have already benefited from it. Whole classes of cancer drugs today, including next-generation genetic treatments, are based on biomarker data.
This kind of advanced, personalized medicine is now coming to my specialty, neurology. Early, molecular-level diagnostics and precision therapies could transform the treatment of some of the world’s most debilitating, painful, lethal diseases.
Patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or other neurological diseases should not have to wait for their insurance companies to catch up with the science.
Alzheimer’s researchers are already developing blood-based biomarker tests that can detect early signs of amyloid and tau buildup, which are the hallmarks of the disease, years before symptoms appear. These tests could identify which patients are best suited for new, disease-modifying therapies and allow for effective interventions earlier than ever before.
Tests are also being developed to identify molecular patterns in Parkinson’s patients that could help us tailor care in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
What makes biomarker testing and precision treatments so effective is that they are based on a fact I’ve seen every day in my 20 years in practice: No two patients are the same. The more precisely we can understand what’s happening inside each patient’s brain, the better neurological care is going to get.
What these treatments have done for oncology and are starting to do for neurology, they could soon do for cardiology, immunology, pediatrics, and even mental health. But access to those treatments is only going to be as widespread as insurance coverage.
Around the country, millions of patients can’t access personalized therapies because their insurance companies don’t cover these tests. North Carolina is home to many of them today, but hopefully not for too much longer. The state legislature is considering bipartisan legislation, House Bill 567, that would require health insurers in the state to cover biomarker tests. More than a dozen states have already passed similar laws. The Tar Heel State should be next.
Right now, insurance coverage of biomarker testing is inconsistent. Some plans cover the tests for cancer, but not for neurological diseases. Others require patients to jump through bureaucratic hoops or only authorize biomarker tests after a long and painful diagnostic process. Given what we know about neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s, that is precious time my patients and their families don’t have.
House Bill 567 would ensure North Carolinians’ access to medically appropriate biomarker testing, no matter what diseases they are fighting. It would ensure that insurance policies keep up with the latest advances in medicine and that innovations are immediately accessible to the patients who need them most.
This legislation would level the playing field in North Carolina’s health care system. Like most neurologists, I’ve seen too many patients, especially in rural or lower-income communities and those on Medicaid, denied access for reasons that have nothing to do with science. That’s not just bad medicine, it’s bad policy.
Our state has an opportunity to lead the way by extending access to cutting-edge medicine beyond oncology and bringing it to bear on some of the most devastating and costly diseases in modern medicine.
I’ve seen what happens when patients get the right diagnosis and the right treatment at the right time. Biomarker testing can make that possible for all patients, but only if insurance covers it. North Carolinians deserve that chance; they deserve House Bill 567.
