Verici Dx plc (LSE:VRCI)'s Pre‑Transplant Risk Assessment (PTRA) test could generate more than $191 million in healthcare savings across the US standard‑risk kidney transplant population over two years.
The cost‑impact analysis was conducted by Avalon Health Economics and published in the Journal of Health Economics and Outcomes Research, and the PTRA test is commercially marketed by Thermo Fisher Scientific.
"Early acute rejection remains one of the most significant drivers of post‑transplant complications, and stratifying rejection risk before transplantation could meaningfully change how we approach immunosuppression," said Beatrice Concepcion, MD, Medical Director, Kidney and Pancreas Transplant, University of Chicago Medicine.
The authors conclude that incorporating PTRA into standard‑of‑care protocols could allow clinicians to reduce immunosuppression in clearly low‑risk patients to lower medication‑related adverse events and unfavourable outcomes, while escalating therapy for patients with a high‑risk PTRA result to reduce acute rejection.
The Pre‑Transplant Risk Assessment is a laboratory‑developed test whose performance characteristics are determined by the CLIA laboratory performing the test and it has not been cleared or approved by the US Food and Drug Administration or CE marked in the EU.
Granted CPT PLA code for Protega
The company, separately, announced it was granted a CPT® Proprietary Laboratory Analyses (PLA) code, X257U, for its Protega test by the American Medical Association, marking the company's first formal coding milestone on its route to commercialisation.
CPT codes provide a uniform language for reporting medical services and PLA codes let laboratories more specifically identify their tests when billing Medicare and commercial insurers, with coding representing the initial of the three US reimbursement components of code, price and coverage, and Verici Dx is a precision diagnostics company developing tests for organ transplant patients.
"We were delighted with the AMA's decision as CPT® codes are fundamental in the commercialisation of Protega," Patti Connolly, chief operating officer of Verici Dx, said.
