Letter from Center Director
Dear Colleagues:
We are thrilled to announce the expansion of the TRANSPERS Payer Board. The expanded payer board will be instrumental in the payer decision-making aim in our new NIH grant –
IGET.
This issue also welcomes our new postdoctoral fellow – Cheng Chen and highlights several TRANSPERS milestones and team achievements.
As always, I welcome your engagement.
Best,
Kathryn A. Phillips, PhD
Highlights
TRANSPERS Expands Payer Advisory Board to Better Understand Payer Decision-Making
The TRANSPERS Payer Advisory Board was initially formed in 2007 and has subsequently been engaged in a unique research program focused on coverage decision-making for emerging precision medicine technologies. Since the health care system and clinical applications for these technologies continue to evolve, TRANSPERS has expanded the UCSF TRANSPERS Payer Advisory Board in preparation for upcoming payer decision-making studies. Payer Advisory Board members participate in TRANSPERS research on payer decision-making through interviews or roundtable webinars.
Board members represent key payer constituencies including:
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Large national and prominent regional private insurers
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Business coalitions representing self-insured employers
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Laboratory benefit management companies
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Public payer experts
For more information.
TRANSPERS Director’s Presentation at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology Precision Health Conference Named as “Best Conference Talk”
Kathryn participated in a panel presentation chaired by the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Director, Eric Green, alongside Sir Rory Collins (UK Biobank/University of Oxford) and David Glazer (Verily Life Sciences), in San Diego, CA on September 10.
Kathryn A. Phillips, PhD: Addressing economic and reimbursement challenges for genomic medicine: Who should pay? Who will pay?” Advances in Genome Biology and Technology Meeting, September 9-11, 2021
More Publications
Kathryn Phillips and Grace Lin Published Blog Post in Health Affairs on Latest Controversy Over Alzheimer’s Drug Aducanumab
Two TRANSPERS collaborators (
Kathryn Phillips and
Grace Lin) who participated in the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review’s (ICER)
review of aducanumab delved into the challenges of accurate screening for mild cognitive impairment or dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease – which is critical for targeting the drug to the right individuals. Read more:
Yet Another Controversy Over The Latest Alzheimer’s Drug: How Will Patient Eligibility Be Determined?.
Presentations
Jalayne Arias, JD: Alzheimer's disease: “Through the Lens of Public Health, Policy, and Precision Medicine.” UCSF Memory and Aging Center, August 27, 2021.
Upcoming
Patricia Deverka, MD: “Multi-cancer Early Detection Screening Tests: Anticipating and Addressing Likely Considerations for Payer Coverage and Patient Access.”
The Early Detection of Cancer Conference, October 6-8, 2021.
Collaborator & Partner News
TRANSPERS welcomes Cheng Chen, PhD as a postdoctoral fellow
Cheng joined TRANSPERS this month for a postdoctoral fellowship. She was recently awarded a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from The University of New Mexico, College of Pharmacy with a specialization in Pharmacoeconomics, Epidemiology, Pharmaceutical Policy, and Outcomes Research. She will work primarily with TRANSPERS’s
Jeroen Jansen to assess the economic value of liquid biopsies and polygenic risk scores using distributional cost-effective analysis methods as part of our recent NIH grant
IGET. Welcome Cheng!
In the News
We are pleased to highlight how Precision Medicine is on the radar screen! Our paper in Health Affairs by Geoff Ginsburg and Kathryn Phillips was named as one of the most cited papers in Health Affairs in 2018-2019, demonstrating the wide interest in this topic.
