Mental Wellness Milestone: 100,000 Patients Tested With GeneSight to Support Medication Selection
Personalized Medicine Company Assurex Health Marks Significant Growth; Sets Goal of Testing One Million Patients by 2018
Mason, OH – August 12, 2014 — Assurex Health, a leading personalized medicine company, announced that 100,000 mental health and chronic pain patients across North America have now been tested with GeneSight products that help clinicians select medications based on patients’ individual genetic profile.
“This means that 100,000 people were helped on the road to mental wellness with GeneSight as an integral part of informing their treatment decisions,” said Virginia C. Drosos, CEO of Assurex Health. “We hope to bring the value of GeneSight to many more clinicians and patients who are working together to manage their mental health, chronic pain, and ADHD.”
GeneSight helps health care providers make mental health and chronic pain treatment decisions based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup. Administered using a simple cheek swab, GeneSight is becoming a preferred step in helping clinicians treat patients with conditions such as depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, chronic pain, and ADHD.
“Many clinicians are making GeneSight the standard of care in their practices,” said Joel Winner, M.D., Medical Director of Assurex Health and a practicing psychiatrist in Colorado. “GeneSight is extremely beneficial in helping to identify genetically appropriate medications for patients. It gives us more precise information, so we can more quickly help patients get better.”
Rapid Growth Expected to Continue
The number of patients tested using GeneSight has doubled since 2012, and is on pace to double again in 2014. Assurex Health expects up to one million patients could be tested by 2018.
Founded in 2006, Assurex Health has grown rapidly to service clinicians and patients throughout the U.S. and has recently expanded internationally through a partnership with Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Today, more than 8,500 clinicians in private practice, health systems, long-term care facilities and other care sites are registered to offer GeneSight.
Assurex Health recently secured $32 million in additional financing from GE Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, Sequoia Capital, Claremont Creek Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, CincyTech and Allos Ventures, allowing it to enhance its focus on leading-edge science and delivering clinically proven results and product enhancements.
Assurex Health also recently introduced significantly enhanced versions of its GeneSight Psychotropic and GeneSight Analgesic products and added new commercial health insurance networks to increase patients’ coverage. In addition, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in June approved use of GeneSight at VA medical centers, the largest health system in the United States, joining Medicare in reimbursing GeneSight.
Commitment to Veterans
As many as 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have PTSD and/or depression, according to a RAND Center for Military Health Policy Research study. The study also found that health care for a veteran with PTSD costs 3.5 times as much as for one without the disorder, with individual treatment costing $8,300 per patient per year. When GeneSight is used in making treatment decisions, those costs can be significantly reduced.
Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) visited Assurex Health yesterday to celebrate the milestone 100,000th test, touring its laboratories, and speaking to employees at a town hall session. He noted his shared commitment to mental health awareness and assisting veterans with mental health disorders.
“We want veterans to be getting the best health care possible. They’ve earned it, they deserve it,” said Senator Portman. “But in general, we want to make sure that care is effective, and so if you are a veteran, or on active duty and getting government health care, this test actually takes the government dollar and uses it much more efficiently.”
About Assurex Health
Assurex Health is a personalized medicine company providing industry-leading treatment decision support to clinicians. Assurex Health’s proprietary technology is based on pharmacogenomics – the study of the genetic factors that influence an individual’s response to medications – as well as evidence-based medicine and clinical pharmacology. Assurex Health has licensed patented technology from Mayo Clinic and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center who remain research collaborators. For more information, visit www.assurexhealth.com.
About GeneSight
GeneSight helps health care providers make behavioral health and chronic pain treatment decisions based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup. Genesight is the only neuropsychiatric pharmacogenomic test validated in peer-reviewed, published studies. GeneSight analyzes up to 785,000 permutations of an individual’s genes and available medications, and presents the results in an easy to read, actionable color-coded report available 36 hours after Assurex Health receives a patient’s cheek swab. Many commercial and government insurance plans reimburse all or part of the cost of GeneSight. Assurex Health also offers financial assistance programs for patients who qualify. Learn more at www.sandbox.genesight.com.