The cost of a gene test is quite low compared to the potential cost of hospitalization from adverse reactions resulting from administering the wrong drug or wrong dose for an individual. Thus, health insurance companies are quite interested in how well gene tests work for choosing the correct drug/dose and avoiding costly adverse reactions.
You work for a scientific consulting firm and have been ask to give your recommendations for pharmacogenomic testing to an insurance company. Your team will choose 4 drugs that currently have pharmacogenomic gene tests available, and analyze how accurate or useful they are for choosing the correct dose or type of drug. Based on your analysis, you will recommend to the insurance company whether or not it should pay for each test by writing a short letter.
For each drug (or category of drug, if there’s a single test for multiple drugs), you should include the following:
Name of drug and recommendation for testing.
Example – Samintovir: No, testing is not recommended
If you recommend testing for certain high risk individuals, then be specific.
A sentence or two about the gene being tested and how it might be related to drug response.
A concise rationale for why testing is or is not recommended. This may be in paragraph form or bullet points. Use as much data as possible in your explanation. Include in-text citations for all information…like this (Smith 2019).