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Myriad Genetics Signs Pricing Agreement With United Healthcare for Several Tests

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Myriad Genetics has inked a new long-term pricing agreement with insurer UnitedHealthcare for a number of its diagnostics, the company said in an 8K filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission.

The agreement establishes pricing for its hereditary cancer tests, the neuropsychiatric pharmacogenetic test GeneSight, the prostate cancer aggressiveness test Prolaris, the rheumatoid arthritis test Vectra DA, and the breast cancer recurrence test EndoPredict. The agreement doesn't establish coverage for these tests, which will be established by individual plans. Myriad didn't disclose additional terms of the deal.

The announcement was viewed as "incrementally positive," by Wells Fargo Securities analyst Tim Evans. In a note to investors, he wrote that although Myriad likely had to make pricing concessions to United Healthcare in terms of its hereditary cancer tests, the agreement could still turn out to be a positive for the company, given that GeneSight is the company's largest volume test with an annual run rate of 250,000 tests and limited private payor coverage.

"We estimate private coverage is about 50 percent of GeneSight's market, and perhaps 20 percent of that is covered by United Healthcare," Evans wrote. "At a targeted $2,000 test price, that would result in $50 million of incremental revenue if United Healthcare coverage does come through."

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