On Monday, Biogen released an update detailing our community’s progress in gaining access to Spinraza. The latest update shows that significant progress has been made in making Spinraza broadly available to those impacted by SMA.
The update includes:
- 233 sites have begun the process for administering Spinraza,
- 145 of those sites now actively dosing.
- More than 170 commercial plans have approved Spinraza, meaning that over 80% of commercial members are part of plans that have a Spinraza policy.
- 28 state Medicaid boards have issued a Spinraza policy, covering 60% of state Medicaid members.
Approximately 70% of commercial and 60% of Medicaid policies are broad policies, meaning they have few or no restrictions based on type, age or copy number. The remaining 40% are more narrow, and represent opportunities for continued advocacy by our community.
Already, we have seen the positive impact of this advocacy, from both commercial and Medicaid payers. In June, Anthem issued a revised policy removing many of the restrictions that were part of their initial policy. In addition, the North Carolina Medicaid Board, which initially adopted a restrictive policy, is currently considering a revised policy that would open Spinraza to anyone with a genetic diagnosis of SMA, regardless of type or age.
Spinraza is now approved in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Filings are pending in Brazil, Israel, Australia, Korea, and Switzerland.
Cure SMA Spinraza Site Administration List
In April, Cure SMA launched a list of of Spinraza administration sites. This list currently includes 71 sites in 28 states (including Washington DC), and the list is continually updated as new sites and added.
If your local site is not listed, please email us, or ask the site coordinator to email us, at [email protected]. Site managers must give their permission to have the site listed here.
To learn more about access to Spinraza and the initiatives we’re currently working on, download the presentation from our Friday opening general session at the 2017 Annual SMA Conference.