The price for whole genome sequencing continues to cascade downward -- Veritas Genetics recently announced a new price of $599 including analysis of test results for 200 conditions (see: Veritas Genetics Drops Its Price for Clinical-Grade Whole-Genome Sequencing to $599, as Gene Sequencing Costs Continue to Fall). Below is an excerpt from the article:
By announcing an annotated whole-genome sequencing (WGS) service to consumers for just $599, Veritas Genetics is establishing a new price benchmark for medical laboratories and gene testing companies. Prior to this announcement in July, Veritas priced its standard myGenome service at $999....Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will want to watch to see if Veritas’ low-priced, $599 whole-genome sequencing becomes a pricing standard for the genetic testing industry. Meanwhile, the new price includes not only the sequencing, but also an expert analysis of test results that includes information on more than 200 conditions, Veritas says. “The focus in our industry is shifting from the cost of sequencing genomes to interpretation capabilities and that’s where our secret sauce is,” said Veritas CEO Mirza Cifric in a news release....The company also says it “achieved this milestone primarily by deploying internally-developed machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] tools as well as external tools—including Google’s DeepVariant—and by improving its in-house lab operations.”....
....Kathryn Phillips, PhD, Professor of Health Economics at University of California,...says insurers are uncertain that genetic sequencing will lead to clinical diagnoses. “Insurers are looking for things where, if you get the information, there’s something you can do with it and that both the provider and the patient are willing and able to use that information to do things that improve their health,”....“Insurers are very interested in using genetic testing for prevention, but we need to...demonstrate that the information will be used and that it’s a good trade-off between the benefits and the costs.”...[The] answer for that...[may be to] get biopharmaceutical companies to foot the bill. Though Veritas’ new price for their myGenome service is significantly lower than before, it’s not free.
For the time being, the question of who will pay for this testing service is clear. The Veritas WGS kit will be available to consumers in a manner similar to that of 23andMe and its competitors. It will probably be purchased by relatively affluent consumers who are interested in discovering the diseases to which they are predisposed. Such purchasers will not constitute a very large market but perhaps one of sufficient size to satisfy Veritas for now. I have referred to such conditions "pre-diseases" in some of my older blog notes (see: Predisposition to Disease and Pre-Disease on the Health Continuum; The Diagnosis and Treatment of Pre-Diseases: A Look at the Future). One of the challenges relating to the discovery and analysis of pre-diseases is that our current drugs have never been tested for efficacy on patients with pre-diseases because we have not been able to identify them in the past.
What is certain is that medical researchers including those at Veritas Genetics, using WGS data and AI techniques such as predictive analytics, will continue to gain knowledge about pre-diseases. As potentially lethal pre-diseases are identified with a high degree of certainly, individuals will be selected for clinical trials of drugs for these conditions. Modifying the course of a potentially lethal pre-disease will be of great interest to both health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. They will thus gladly absorb the costs of WGS at some future time to identify potentially lethal pre-diseases. However and interestingly, when that time comes, the cost of WGS will probably be so low that many consumers will be willing to purchase the tests kits with their own resources.
Addendum on 10 December 2019: Veritas Genetics, the start-up that can sequence a human genome for less than $600, ceases US operations and is in talks with potential buyer
Comments