CMS, NCI to partner in cancer fight

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have announced a collaboration designed to improve the process for bringing anti-cancer drugs to patients.

CMS and NCI are developing a joint memorandum of understanding that will address how the two agencies can work together in five areas:

1. Creating a joint process for identifying high-priority clinical questions about the optimal use of new cancer technologies and the creation of a process for conducting post-approval studies to address these questions.
2. Defining a systematic process for consultations between CMS and NCI experts to evaluate new diagnostic and therapeutic cancer technologies for the purposes of payment and coverage decisions.
3. Developing more efficient methods of collecting clinical evidence on new cancer technologies and strategies for making this information more widely available to patients, clinicians, and researchers. The agencies will also explore the inclusion of CMS claims data on the NCI bioinformatics grid, CA-BIG, to make this information more easily available for research on matters such as outcomes and comparative utilization of existing treatments.
4. Developing a joint process for the prospective identification and evaluation of emerging technologies such as molecular imaging, so that reimbursement policies will fully anticipate promising new cancer technologies and help expedite marketplace adoption.
5. Identifying opportunities for sharing data and resources aimed at improving the quality of care for caner patients, and addressing additional concerns such as cancer health disparity issues, reducing unwarranted variation in treatment patterns, and improving palliative and end-of-life care.

Driven by a major shift in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, CMS and NCI said they intend to work together to ensure that the reimbursement framework can adapt to these changes. The agencies will also develop collaborative efforts to identify and initiate high-priority clinical trials in areas where clinicians and patients have said they need more or better clinical information to guide their decision-making about new or competing treatment regimens.

As a first step, the agencies will jointly develop a strategic approach for prioritizing clinical questions and adopting joint processes to allow for better clinical data collection after new treatments are cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. The NCI and CMS will also work together to coordinate standards and develop tools to streamline their interactions and accelerate the overall development of evidence for new cancer drugs.

By AuntMinnie.com staff writers
June 8, 2004

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