The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

Biotechnology, Health and Business in Canada, the United States and Worldwide

Tag Archives: Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act

Biotech Trends Update: Costs Savings from Personalized Medicine Sought by PBMs, Employers, Pharma Face Legal and Privacy Hurdles

When AstraZeneca announced a companion diagnostics collaboration recently, their head of oncology development said the goal was to get “the right treatment, to the right patient, the first time,” a nice turn of phrase* that is becoming a chorus in the healthcare industry. This week, giant PBM Medco purchased DNA Direct, saying “[o]ur whole thing at Medco [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: A Big Market, If We Can Just Figure Out How to Get People to Use It

Late last year, a PwC report made the rounds with a big headline number — $232 billion — as the size of the personalized medicine market.  FierceBiotech called it a “tipping point,” for personalized medicine.  George Church called us “the first genomic generation” in Newsweek, and Francis Collins’ new book ”offers practical advice on how to [...]

In Praise of Universal Coverage From a Genomics Perspective

This could be the last chance in the U.S. to make good decisions about health care.  Why? Because now, before genome sequencing is fast and cheap and universal, we are in a political position rarely experienced outside philosophy books: we are still in the “original position,” behind the “veil of ignorance.”  I’ll try to make this [...]

Trends Update — DTC Genetic Tests: NOVA ScienceNOW Program Takes a Look

Yesterday’s NOVA ScienceNOW program included a segment on direct-to-consumer genomics (H/T to GenomeWeb’s Daily Scan Blog).  The program was bullish on George Church’s Personal Genome Project; but it took a pretty dim view of the predictive value of current consumer technology. The program was accessible and interesting, but it went overboard in making a cautionary point about current DTC genomics [...]

EEOC Meeting Kicks off GINA Comment Period

Last year, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) became law in the U.S.  Among other things, GINA prohibits discrimination by health insurers and employers based on people’s genetic information, prohibits the intentional acquisition of genetic information about applicants and employees, and imposes strict confidentiality requirements.  The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)  is charged with issuing [...]

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