Dx Deals: Collaboration Takes Psoriasis Testing to New Level

“The heartbreak of psoriasis” was a pop culture catchphrase in the 1970s that poked fun at an annoying but often minor skin condition. A half-century later, psoriasis-related heartbreak could refer to the often astronomical cost for treating the autoimmune condition.

For example, SKYRIZI^®, a psoriasis drug that has been a staple of cable news television commercials in recent years, costs nearly $80,000 per year.¹

Treating psoriasis has been placing a hefty cost burden on insurers. For example, Medicare Part D spending on psoriasis drugs between 2013 and 2017 averaged 41 percent of all expenditures for dermatologic medications. That proportion rose from 36 percent in 2013 to 53 percent by 2017, an increase of nearly 50 percent.²

By contrast, some older drugs that often treat psoriasis effectively may cost less than $2,000 annually.³

A growing need to better match psoriasis patients with more cost-effective treatments has led to an unusual collaboration between California-based precision medicine lab Mindera Health and pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) Liviniti.⁴

Under the terms of the collaboration, Liviniti will use Mindera’s Mind.Px assay to assist in determining the best drug match for health plan enrollees who work with the PBM. The test collects mRNA from psoriasis patients using a dermal patch applied to a lesion. Machine-learning assisted transcriptomic analysis is then performed to identify about 7,000 psoriasis-related biomarkers.

Mindera chief executive officer Ron Rocca said the test helps assist clinicians in making a prescription recommendation among the most effective of the three classes of drugs: anti-TNFs, IL-23s, and IL-7s, all of which have significant price differences.

According to Mindera officials, the currently available technology can predict a successful drug regimen only about 53 percent of the time. The Mind.Px assay can recommend the correct treatment more than 90 percent of the time.

The company has had some success selling the test: It struck a deal last fall with the U.S. General Services Administration to provide the test to the Veterans Administration Health System and the medical treatment facilities operated by the Department of Defense.⁵ However, the number of tests being performed are a handful a week, Rocca said.

Negotiations are also underway with other PBMs to get them to use the test.

“We’re in discussions,” Rocca said, although he declined to provide more specifics. “There are people within each of these companies that get it.”

Takeaway: Laboratory tests can be used to provide predictive results to ancillary operators in the healthcare space, including pharmacy benefit managers.

References:

1. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/psoriasis-medication-analysis-shows-path-considering-us-drug-2024a10004g5
2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546634.2020.1864265
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK551893/table/pe.app1.tab1/
4. https://minderahealth.com/mindera-health-launches-program-with-innovative-pharmacy-benefit-manager-to-improve-management-of-moderate-to-severe-psoriasis-patients-through-precision-medicine/
5. https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2023/10/10/2757414/0/en/Mindera-Health-Announces-Contract-With-General-Services-Administration.html

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Recently announced deals and collaborations in the laboratory sector include the following:

Mergers and Acquisitions

Strategic Alliances

Government Contracts