Targeted medications are finally becoming a reality as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have announced that the Federal Healthcare Program will cover the costs of cancer gene tests that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and so, starting this week, Medicare patients with advanced cancers will now receive genetic testing to match the patient with the most suitable drug.
CMS is only covering the tests for stage three and stage four metastatic cancer sufferers. This, however, would generate needed genomic data making treatments and outcomes easily tracked and monitored for Medicare patients. The generated data would also have a broad impact on the population at large, as the large volumes of genetic data can be used by hospitals to validate their own tests and help pharmaceutical companies in targeted clinical trials with genetically matched patients.
