Alia Paavola – August 5, 2019
Health insurer Cigna introduced a plan Sept. 5 to fully cover
the cost of expensive gene therapy treatments for patients.
Gene therapies, which aim to treat diseases by
manipulating genes, offer promise in curing hard-to treat disease, but they're
expensive, some costing millions of dollars.
Under Cigna's plan, members will have no
out-of-pocket payments related to the cost of medicine.
The first two gene therapies to be included in
Cigna's program are Luxturna, a one-time $850,000 treatment
for an inherited form of blindness, and Zolgensma, a one-time $2.1
million treatment for spinal muscular atrophy.
Additional therapies may be added to the
program later, the insurer said.
Cigna plans to use the expertise of its
pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts, which it bought for $54 billion last
year, and its specialty pharmacy arm, Accredo.
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