Mindera Health, developer of Mind.Px, the first realization of precision medicine in psoriasis, has completed the credentialling process to become a Medi-Cal provider making its services available to the over 15 million Californians that rely on the state’s Medicaid program for health insurance coverage.

In the United States, psoriasis affects more than three percentof the population. Moderate-to-severe disease severity accounts for approximately one-third of psoriasis diagnoses. This auto-immune condition often leads to absenteeism or major problems at work, depression, and other clinical comorbidities. Specialty drug spending for psoriasis is escalating exponentially, and biologics are often identified by payers, employers, and pharmacy benefit managers as being in their top drug expenditures each year. Furthermore, successful patient responses to currently available biologic treatments are roughly 52 percent, leading to trial-and-error treatment selection and increased healthcare costs.

Mind.Px is a predictive test that uses a patented dermal biomarker patch allowing for rapid and painless extraction of mRNA from skin, followed by transcriptomic analysis and machine learning-derived classifiers to provide actionable results for clinicians with >91 percent positive predictive value. By leveraging precision medicine and matching the patient to the right drug class before treatment begins, clinical outcomes can be improved while biologic drug expenditures are optimized.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to serve the 1 in 3 Californian’s insured as Medi-Cal beneficiaries,” says Ron Rocca, CEO of Mindera Health. “We look forward to partnering with the largest single payer in our home state and its affiliated managed care plans to address the rising costs and optimize clinical outcomes associated with biologic therapy in plaque psoriasis.”