Medicare would cover CAR-T treatments under the new CMS proposal

Under a new proposal from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Medicare program would cover FDA-approved CAR-T treatments. CAR-T therapies, or chimeric receptors for anitrogenic cells, use genetically modified immune cells, called T cells, to specifically target cancer cells. CMS said the proposal, announced Friday, would require Medicare to cover cancer treatment when it is offered in a CMS-approved registry or clinical study, provided the data is collected from patients for at least two years after the treatment. CMS has announced its intention to use this information to determine which treatments are most beneficial for patients and which CAR-T treatments to fund in the future. "The proposed coverage decision today would improve access to this therapy while deepening CMS's understanding of Medicare patient response, so the agency can ensure that She pays the CAR T-Cell therapy for cases in which the benefits outweigh the risks "Seema Varma, CMS administrator, in a statement. There are currently only two approved CAR-T treatments in the United States, and both are very expensive. From Novartis

NVS, + 0.97%

Kymriah has a list price of $ 475,000, while that of Gilead Sciences Inc.

BROWN, + 1.84%

Yescarta is priced at $ 373,000. There is no national health insurance policy to cover the expensive new treatment for cancer. So it is currently up to the local Medicare contractors to decide whether to pay or not. Novartis shares rose 4.3% year-to-date, while Gilead's rose 6.3%. The SPDR S & P Pharmaceuticals ETF

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rose by 13.5% and the S & P 500 by 10.4%.

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