Personalis stock price rises after Medicare approves coverage for lung cancer testing

Investing.com – Precision oncology company Personalis Inc (NASDAQ: PSNL) saw its stock jump 9.3% on Tuesday after the company announced that Medicare will provide coverage for its NeXT Personal molecular residual disease test, used to monitor patients with stage I to III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

This coverage decision is based on clinical evidence from the company’s collaboration with the TRACERx consortium, which validated that the test can accurately identify residual disease in lung cancer patients. The approval follows recent coverage for breast cancer, expanding access for Medicare beneficiaries.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, with approximately 230,000 new cases diagnosed each year. The NeXT Personal test aims to detect trace amounts of circulating tumor DNA that may indicate cancer recurrence, often before standard imaging scans can reveal it.

Personalis CEO and President Chris Hall said, “Gaining Medicare coverage for lung cancer monitoring is a significant advancement on two fronts: it broadens access for patients to NeXT Personal for one of the most common cancers in the U.S., and it serves as a catalyst for our continued growth.”

The test uses whole-genome sequencing and advanced noise suppression techniques to track up to approximately 1,800 mutations, representing the unique fingerprint of a patient’s tumor. This approach is especially valuable in lung cancer, where circulating tumor DNA shedding can be low and difficult to detect.

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