“We did not start 2020 with a full appreciation of how COVID-19 would reveal so rapidly the fragility of the cancer testing ecosystem or the urgent need to integrate the siloed stakeholders so dependent upon it.”—From Diaceutics’ Pharma Precision Medicine Readiness Report 2020: NSCLC—An Axis for Change.1 (Click here to download the Report.)
Throughout 2020, we in Precision Medicine have found ourselves in a perfect storm within the clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem. First, the broken clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem continued to impede the progress of Precision Medicine. But that was nothing new. Second, the longstanding inefficiencies of poorly managed patient diagnostic pathways continued to daily undermine the progress of Precision Medicine. But that was nothing new, either. In 2020, the new agent of harm to enter into the Precision Medicine collision course was COVID-19, the brute force of which rapidly revealed the “fragility of the cancer testing ecosystem”1 and the “urgent need to integrate the siloed stakeholders so dependent upon it.”1
COVID-19 singlehandedly exposed to the world the importance of better management of the patient diagnostic pathway to healthcare overall.
A close look at a typical patient diagnostic journey will reveal the disjointed clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem rife with inefficiency. The typical diagnostic patient pathway consists of the initial visit to the primary care physician (PCP) or emergency room, followed by various specialists’ visits, tests, treatment, and monitoring. In the current broken clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem, each visit and test event holds the potential for significant hurdles to disrupt patients’ progression through their journey.
The systemic inefficiency of the patient diagnostic pathway is the result of years of siloed thinking among stakeholders, and has rendered the clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem unable to serve the needs of patients or industry. As a result, patients have missed out on treatment, peak market share for treatments has been delayed, and laboratory infrastructure has creaked under the strain of adding new tests without the rightsized reimbursement to support them. In the end, the clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem, which should be launching patients in a timely manner toward appropriate Precision Medicine treatment plans, continues to impede the progress of many patients. (Click here to read the first installment of Diaceutics’ Axis for Change series, which exposes the broken clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem within Precision Medicine.)
Better management of the patient diagnostic pathway is the long-standing key to equal or greater outcome benefits to a new treatment alone. But in order for Precision Medicine to achieve the potential of improved outcomes, the hurdles along the patient diagnostic pathway must be removed. Diaceutics addressed this issue in our Pharma Precision Medicine Readiness Report 2020: NSCLC—An Axis for Change, calling for a new collaborative mindset to fix the broken clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem. As stated in the Report: “The time has come to eradicate these hurdles through organized stakeholder collaboration that democratizes and optimizes the patient diagnostic pathway. This will require a shift away from the siloed stakeholder mindset and toward a collaborative willingness to reset operations within the clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem to more accurately accommodate the best interests of patients.” (Click here to download the second Report in our Axis for Change series, which analyzes the broken diagnostic testing ecosystem impeding the delivery of precision medicines today and recommends a collaborative industry solution.)
Better management of the patient diagnostic pathway starts with embedding efficiency into the clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem. Diaceutics believes greater collaboration among stakeholders will feed this efficiency—with the ultimate goal of ensuring the right tests are given to patients at the right time so they can benefit from the right treatments and achieve improved health outcomes. To this end, Diaceutics recognized long ago the imperative to build a diagnostic network for pharma launching test-dependent therapy, particularly in cancers. And so many years ago, Diaceutics began to amass patient testing data and liaise with labs across the globe. In 2020, all our hard work culminated with the launch of DXRX - The Diagnostic Network®, the world’s first diagnostic network for Precision Medicine featuring access to a pipeline of global diagnostic testing data integrating 2500+ labs, a 365M+ patient reach, and an implementation network currently in 51 countries. An end-to-end solution delivering everything from biomarker discovery to in-market test availability, DXRX - The Diagnostic Network® is a new digital solution to the broken clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem, enabling stakeholders everywhere to collaborate in the better management of the patient diagnostic pathway.
In 2020, the timeliness of a platform such as DXRX - The Diagnostic Network®, which places a globally connected diagnostic network at its core, is uncanny. Finally, Precision Medicine has an integrator solution, with a commercial reach eventually extending all the way to the patient.
The value of DXRX - The Diagnostic Network® for stakeholders in Precision Medicine (e.g., pharma, labs, diagnostic companies) can be clearly seen in the multiple benefits offered, including:
- Achieve superior therapy access by outsourcing diagnostic development and commercialization needs
- Select diagnostic testing partners using a standardized, streamlined process
- Reduce time to market by working with the right diagnostic testing partners
- Identify key performance indicators and measure success of multiple brands simultaneously
- Increase global market share through access to a broad network of local partnership opportunities
- Stay agile and informed to enhance, maintain, and monitor test quality using intuitive digital dashboards
- Achieve peak therapy prescription numbers by removing testing hurdles to Precision Medicine launches
- Understand and optimize for physician behavior and preferences to better inform treatment decisions
Today in Precision Medicine we find ourselves in a perfect storm. As the siloed stakeholder mindset continues to feed the broken clinical diagnostic testing ecosystem, COVID-19 further erodes the inefficient patient diagnostic pathway—ultimately leaving patients and the industry underserved. But 2020 also marks the arrival of DXRX - The Diagnostic Network®, a new digital solution to enable better management of the patient diagnostic pathway going forward into 2021 and beyond. And the system shock from COVID-19 has created a coalition of the willing to accelerate this process.
Reference
1. Pharma Precision Medicine Readiness Report 2020: NSCLC—An Axis for Change. Diaceutics web site. https://www.diaceutics.com/articles/precision-medicine-readiness-report-2020-nsclc-an-axis-for-change. Published October 2020. Accessed December 22, 2020.
