Patients, researchers, and other key stakeholders are weighing in on the importance of the Medicaid VBPs for Patients Act, or the MVP Act (H.R. 2666) as the legislation will be considered by the House Energy & Commerce Committee this week.
IGT advisory council members earlier this year, sent a letter to Congress applauding Representatives Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), John Joyce (R-PA) and Scott Peters (D-CA) for their sponsorship of H.R. 2666, saying, “Policies like the MVP Act are imperative to supporting the goal of keeping pace between the innovative science of gene therapy and the mechanisms to pay for them that ultimately grant access to these transformative, often life-saving treatments.”
IGT’s Scientific, Academic and Medical Council Chair Donna Christian-Christensen, M.D. added, “Modernizing our reimbursement system will help countless patients gain timely access to these potentially curative treatments. This will aid our efforts to address health disparities in our healthcare system as gene therapies give us a unique opportunity to address unmet medical needs that impact minority communities.”
Researchers from Duke University’s Margolis Center for Health Policy previously highlighted the need for more advanced VBP arrangements in a white paper, saying that “reasonable clarifications about how prices…will keep the Medicare Best Price regulation up-to-date with marketplace developments - and enable the adoption of more advanced VBP arrangements with the potential for improving outcomes and avoiding unnecessary medical costs, while continuing to support states’ ability to obtain the best available prices in the marketplace.”
Duke-Margolis Center’s Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, said, “Traditional payment approaches for drugs are not well-suited to the treatments we are increasingly seeing now – including gene and cell therapies that may be transformative but have high upfront costs, as well as drugs that have the potential to substantially reduce the burden of common chronic diseases, which contribute to worsening health outcomes. The MVP Act can increase the impact of innovative therapies by removing obstacles to value-based payment arrangements that support better evidence, promote more effective therapy use, and align costs with outcomes, which will drive more investment in treatments to really make a difference in health.”
IGT’s newest Patient Advocacy Advisory Council member, Lauren Holder recently penned an op-ed in The Hill saying, “This legislation would position value-based purchasing approaches as one solution to put these therapies within the reach of many patients. Under a value-based purchasing structure, payment for a new gene therapy would be tied to the effectiveness of the treatment and would help mitigate the considerable cost involved for health care payers, creating greater access for patients.”
To learn more about the MVP Act, click here.