by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | November 20, 2014
From the September 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The last thing, we need some of these tracers or agents for diagnosis and therapy to be approved faster. It has been very difficult to get things through FDA and get them available. There are a lot of face-to-face meetings and advocacy, trying to get the process streamlined so that we can get the data needed to satisfy regulatory departments to get those options onto the market for patients in need as fast as possible. Reimbursement is the last thing. For example, we have three agents that can help to rule out Alzheimer’s, but reimbursement isn’t there, so they’re not being used. CMS needs to react faster to research showing benefits and facilitate availability to the different options to the public.
HCBN: If budgets weren’t a concern, what would you like to see in regard to cancer diagnosis and therapy?
HJ: If funding was no obstacle and we could understand the biology of the cancers, clinics of the future could not only detect, but characterize cancer for that patient in a streamlined fashion using not just imaging but blood tests possibly as well. At the end of the day, the patient comes out, you’re able to tell the patient and their physician – this is the type of cancer it is, this is the treatment it will respond to, this is what it won’t respond to. You’re able to monitor closely and if you see the biology of the cancer is changing, you can be warned, stop the treatment earlier and adjust your approach.
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