Lower Drug, Healthcare Costs? Bills Miss the Mark.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, insanity is on the march at the state legislature.

Several 2025 bills are very similar to legislation that failed to achieve General Assembly support in years past.

They include bills such as SB 2, SB 3, SB 11, SB 1372, and HB 7192.

SB 11 and HB 7192, for example, institute price controls on prescription medicines, facilitate “gaming” of the 340B drug discount program, and attempt to create a regulatory maze to import Canadian drugs.

Each year the negative effects of price controls—shortages in drug supply, undermining medical innovation, to name only a few—are outlined and the path toward government intervention in pricing and the drug supply chain is tabled.

Similarly, further de-linking 340B discounted drugs from the patients who are supposed to receive the benefits of the 340B program makes no rational sense if the goal is to reduce prices for those truly in need—the uninsured and the underinsured.

And year after year Canadian officials state categorically that they won’t allow export of prescription medicines, already in short supply in their country, to the U.S.

Unfortunate Fate for Biomarker Testing

Perhaps the most unfortunate parliamentary maneuver of this legislative session is the fate of four bills aimed at facilitating biomarker testing.

Biomarker tests mine genetic material, proteins and other substances to allow medical practitioners to personalize care so that treatment has a much higher probability for success.

Biomarkers speed diagnosis of disease and allow earlier identification of what treatments will and will not be effective.

When a biomarker for a specific disease is used, it makes for a definitive, early diagnosis of disease.

When a biomarker for a specific disease exists and is used, it makes for a definitive, early diagnosis of disease. This is a powerful tool to lower healthcare costs.

Biomarkers facilitate prediction of disease risk. For example, by identifying the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene—implicated in breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancers—preventative treatment can forestall and in some cases eliminate the risk of disease onset.

Biomarkers allow treatment to be “personalized.” With precise data about an individual’s specific form of disease, treatment can be customized to the individual patient.

This frees both the patient and the healthcare system from the time, discomfort, and cost of needless trial and error procedures and therapies.

‘Bright Light’

Biomarkers are also used to monitor effectiveness of treatment and disease progression or recurrence.

Biomarkers are a bright light in disease diagnosis and treatment and represent a common-sense solution for delivery of efficient and effective healthcare.

Biomarkers are a bright light in disease diagnosis and treatment.

As such, biomarkers facilitate the medical practitioner and the patient in choosing among treatment options.

In honing treatment protocols to those with data supporting their effectiveness, biomarkers reduce healthcare costs.

Citing a CVS Health study, the American Cancer Society notes that “…  spending more on biomarker testing upfront significantly reduced the overall cost of lung cancer care—saving an average of more than $8,500 per lung cancer patient with broad panel testing compared to similar patients who received less expensive narrow panel testing.”

Bill Support

The value of biomarker testing to patients and the long-term efficiency and savings biomarker testing brings to the healthcare system was so apparent that no fewer than four biomarker bills were introduced this session: SB 391, SB 554, HB 6355 and HB 6771.

The first three were Insurance and Real Estate Committee bills, the logical committee for a biomarker insurance bill, and HB 6771, which came out of the Aging Committee.

HB 6771 has now been referred to the Insurance Committee, where it will likely die.

Biomarker testing is a tool which will soon become standard practice and be a powerful means to lower healthcare costs.

While there was overwhelming support for HB 6771 and biomarker testing—29 organizations submitted testimony, 28 in favor, one in opposition—the bill’s language was modified and grafted onto HB 6895.

The mandate review process HB 6895 puts into place, including a sunset provision terminating benefits after four years, could be a valuable tool to assess the medical and economic value of insurance coverage requirements.

However, biomarker testing isn’t a mandate of uncertain value. It is, instead, a tool which will soon become standard practice and be a powerful means to lower healthcare costs.

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Paul Pescatello is the executive director of CBIA’s Bioscience Growth Council and chair of We Work for Health Connecticut. Follow him on X @CTBio.