CVS: Coronavirus-related testing free for Aetna plan members

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Happy Friday, readers.

CVS Health is leveraging its ownership of health insurer Aetna (you may recall that the company celebrated the one-year anniversary of the deal’s close in December) to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

On Friday, the retail pharmacy and onsite medical clinic giant announced that any Aetna plan members will be able to get COVID-19 related diagnostic testing without having to shell out a copay or out-of-pocket costs.

Furthermore, the company will also provide those with Aetna health insurance plans free telemedicine visits via services like the CVS MinuteClinic’s virtual doctor visit feature for the next three months—no matter the reason.

“[W]e’re providing COVID-19 diagnostic testing and telemedicine visits with no out-of-pocket costs or cost sharing for Aetna members, along with a number of other programs and offerings that reinforce our commitment to delivering timely and seamless access to care,” said Aetna president Karen Lynch in a statement.

The telemedicine provision is intriguing. Public health officials have been pushing patients to use telehealth if possible in order to prevent bottle necks at medical facilities and reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus to people who are already sick.

I suspect that an increasing number of insurers will employ this tact in the coming weeks and months amid mounting public pressure. But there’s still plenty of people who could fall through the cracks and face massive medical bills even if the trend continues.

For instance, what if you just don’t have insurance—or have a short-term insurance plan which isn’t required to cover pre-existing conditions and can offer skimpy benefits? And what of potential hospital stays?

Furthermore, there’s still a backlog of testing to be done given the initial manufacturing issues with the CDC’s coronavirus tests. On Thursday, the agency said six states don’t even have public health labs that can test for coronavirus set up yet.

Still, it seems like a big step in the right direction. Oh and, by the way, check out our new coronavirus pop-up newsletter, Outbreak, for a daily roundup of the news.

Read on for the day’s news, and have a wonderful weekend.

Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy

DIGITAL HEALTH

HIMSS gets canceled. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference—the largest health IT conference in America—was canceled for the first time in 58 years over (what else?) coronavirus fears. The conference was supposed to begin next week in Orlando. “We recognize all the hard work that so many have put into preparing for their presentations and panels that accompany every HIMSS conference,” said Hal Wolf, president and CEO of HIMSS, in a statement. “Based on evaluation of evolving circumstances and coordination with an external advisory panel of medical professionals to support evidence-based decision making, it is clear that it would be an unacceptable risk to bring so many thousands of people together in Orlando next week.”

INDICATIONS

How much does it actually cost to develop a drug? A new study published in the journal JAMA finds that, while drug development is quite expensive, biopharma companies significantly inflate the average cost of bringing a molecule to market. The industry tends to point to high-end figures approaching $3 billion, but the study authors found that the median R&D cost was actually about $985 million. (JAMA)

The cell and gene therapy market keeps growing. The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine has released its latest review of the global gene and cell therapy market—and the money keeps rolling in. Companies in the space raised $10 billion in 2019, making it the second-most lucrative year on record, including $4 billion in VC cash. Furthermore, the organization notes that there were nearly 1,100 gene, cell, and regenerative therapy clinical trials being conducted by the end of last year.

THE BIG PICTURE

Coronavirus cases top 100,000 worldwide as Trump signs funding bill. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the globe has now exceeded 100,000 on Friday. (For an explainer on what we know about the coronavirus death rate, check out my piece from last night.) On the same day that grim milestone was reached, President Donald Trump signed an $8.3 billion funding bill to fuel anti-COVID-19 efforts in the U.S., which is three times as much as the Trump administration was originally proposing to allocate. (Fortune)