NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Molecular diagnostics company CareDx announced today that it has signed an agreement to make its heart transplant diagnostic test AlloMap a contracted service with Anthem Blue Cross of California and 10 of its affiliated health plans.
The agreement includes Anthem plans in California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Georgia, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin.
"Our in-network participation with Anthem and its affiliated health plans highlights the strong relationship between CareDx and national private payors," CareDx CEO Peter Maag said in a statement. "We are proud to make AlloMap accessible to heart transplant patients across the US with approximately 80 percent of all insured lives now covered for AlloMap."
AlloMap is a non-invasive blood test for heart transplant patients that helps physicians identify the risk of acute cellular rejection. It uses a panel of 20 gene assays — 11 of them informative and nine used for normalization or quality control — which produces gene expression data that is then used to calculate a rejection risk score, CareDx explained on its website.
The company also launched a comprehensive rejection surveillance diagnostic for heart transplant recipients in April 2018 called HeartCare that combined AlloMap with AlloSure — its blood-based, donor-derived, cell-free DNA test for organ transplant rejection. CareDx said the combined product would provide a holistic view into the health of heart transplant recipients and give clinicians a clearer picture of patients' immune system activity and graft health.