WSJ OpEd: Weill-Cornell Author Frames CMS NCD on NGS as "Needless Regulatory Threat to Cancer Patients"

On February 25, 2018, the WSJ published an Op Ed by Olivier Elemento, the director of the Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell School of Medicine.

With regard to the pending NCD on gene panel testing in Medicare patients with cancer, the author writes, "The CMS proposal is another example of faulty government regulation."  He adds, limits would "set back progress in genomic testing and oncology by at least a decade." 

He writes the NCD would cause "abrupt change," that NGS LDT tests are "as accurate and reliable as FDA approved testing," that "only one of hundreds of laboratories would meet all the new requirements" [FMI].  He states the "monopoly would [allow] price manipulations."

The full essay is here.  The author has 2600 followers on Twitter.

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A subscription article in StatNews on February 21 made points similar to Elemento's WSJ piece.