The second session of the World Stem Cell Summit in Atlanta moved past all the promising science and right to the nitty-gritty of making cell-based therapies common. Four panelists reminded the audience that while they too are super excited by the potential for this field, unless folks developing therapies think about reimbursement early those therapies will not become a reality in routine clinical care.

“Stem cell therapies seem unstoppable with seemingly limitless possibilities, but success requires early planning for reimbursement,” said moderator Michael Levinson, a lawyer and physician with the law firm Hogan Lovells.

Elizabeth Powers of the IMS Consulting group suggested the audience pay close attention to the cancer market.  She said insurers and other payers of health care services are tired of paying for “statistically significant” improvements in survival that only translate to a few weeks on average. She said payers are moving away from just whether a new therapy is different from prior therapies and want to be shown true value.

A further reminder to start the reimbursement process early came from panelist Deborah Dean of MiMedx.  She said the process of just applying for a reimbursement code takes two years and after that it can take months or more to then present your case to insurers to turn that code into actual payments.

During the question period there was a bit of potential good news attached to an industry trend I did not expect. The consolidation of insurers, with two major mergers on deck, could actually extend the average length of time a customer is with an insurer from between two to five years to between five to ten years. This may make insurers more willing to pay for a one-time curative therapy that is expensive but eliminates chronic therapy costs.