BioUtah Participates in American Cancer Society Policy Panel Presentation

September 14, 2023

The American Cancer Society – Cancer Action Network (ACS-CAN) hosted a panel at the Utah State Capitol on September 12, 2023. Kelvyn Cullimore, BioUtah’s CEO, participated as a panelist. Other panelists included legislators, patient advocates, SelectHealth, and physicians. The panel focused on three policy issues:

• The impact of co-pay accumulator programs being instituted by insurance companies and their impact on cancer patients
• The need to support multi-cancer screening tests – an emerging technology
• The advent of biomarker testing and how it can be implemented to save lives and save money for insurance companies in the long run

Cullimore explained the position for banning co-pay accumulators as they redirect third party payments intended to help patients with co-pay and deductible obligations on high cost medicines. Select Health explained the need for tools such as this to keep costs down for employers and employees. Patients explained how losing that assistance is detrimental to them.

All agreed that multi-cancer testing should be embraced, although BioUtah pointed out it should not be limited to blood based testing alone. Select Health explained they are already supporting coverage of biomarker testing in order to find and attack cancer earlier when it is less costly to do so.