Precision Medicine Test Proven to Provide Healthcare Cost Savings, Improve Outcomes
MASON, Ohio — September 23, 2015 – Assurex Health, Inc., a precision medicine company providing treatment decision support to healthcare providers for patients with behavioral health conditions, announced that its GeneSight® test now has been used to help more than 200,000 people on the road to mental wellness, according to Virginia C. Drosos, President and CEO.
“Last August we celebrated the milestone that 100,000 people had taken the GeneSight test,” Drosos noted. “In just over one year, GeneSight tests have been administered to 100,000 more people, which signifies its wide acceptance by psychiatric healthcare professionals across the country. Our entire team is very proud.”
A recent study, published in Current Medical Research & Opinion, demonstrated $1,036 in annual prescription savings per patient when healthcare providers used the GeneSight combinatorial pharmacogenomic (CPGxTM) test results to guide treatment decisions compared with usual trial-and-error prescribing. CPGx is the evaluation of multiple genetic factors that influence an individual’s response to medications.
GeneSight is Unlike Other Tests
Unlike other neuropsychiatric pharmacogenomic tests, GeneSight measures multiple clinically important genomic variants for each patient and weights them together – rather than one at a time – to provide comprehensive recommendations for each medication for each patient. This is important in evaluating medication response given that most psychiatric medications work through multiple genetic pathways, both metabolically and at their point of response.
In multiple peer-reviewed and published clinical studies, GeneSight has proven to result in better patient outcomes at lower cost through enhanced medication selection. That’s why GeneSight is the only neuropsychiatric pharmacogenomic test covered by Medicare. GeneSight is also available through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Need is Great
One in four adults suffers from a mental illness in any given year.i Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common among these illnesses with a one year prevalence of 6.7 percent.i Many individuals suffering from MDD do not receive treatment because of social stigma, financial outlay, and limited access to health care.i
Of those who do pursue treatment, two-thirds do not achieve full remission. Instead, they often have to try multiple medications over many months or even years to eventually find a medication with a favorable risk/benefit balance.ii
This perpetuation of treatment-resistant depression results in greater loss of work productivity and disability, and 70 percent higher annual medical costs than for treatment-responsive patients.iii
“We have an opportunity to make a profound difference,” said Drosos. “It is gratifying to know that more and more people across the country are benefiting from the objective genetic information that GeneSight testing offers their healthcare provider, and getting on the road to wellness faster.”
About GeneSight
GeneSight helps health care providers make more precise treatment decisions based on how a patient’s unique genetic makeup affects their individual response to 38 FDA-approved medications for depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other mental health conditions. GeneSight is the only neuropsychiatric combinatorial pharmacogenomic test validated in multiple, peer-reviewed, published clinical studies. GeneSight analyzes over 785,000 permutations of an individual’s genes and available medications, and presents the results in an easy to read, color-coded report available typically within 36 hours after Assurex Health receives a patient’s cheek swab. Many commercial and government insurance plans, including Medicare and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, reimburse all or part of the cost of GeneSight. Assurex Health also offers financial assistance programs for patients who qualify.
About Assurex Health
Assurex Health is a commercial-stage, informatics-based precision medicine company providing treatment decision support to health care providers for behavioral health conditions. Assurex Health’s proprietary GeneSight technology is based on combinatorial pharmacogenomics (CPGx™) – the application of multiple 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, both of whom continue to be research collaborators.
i NAMI. Numbers of Americans Affected by Mental Illness. Mental Illness Facts and Numbers https://www.nami.org/factsheets/mentalillness_factsheet.pdf. Accessed October 20, 2013.
ii Warden D, Rush AJ, Trivedi MH, Fava M, Wisniewski SR. The STAR*D Project results: a comprehensive review of findings. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2007;9(6):449-59.
iii Mrazek DA, Hornberger JC, Altar CA, Degtiar I. A review of the clinical, economic, and societal burden of treatment-resistant depression: 1996-2013. Psychiatry Serv. 2014;65(8):977-87.