Highlights September 2021
Featured video
Paying for Cures: Actions you can take today

In Context
Self-insured employers workshop
In June FoCUS hosted a workshop for self-insured employers to help them understand the challenges and potential solutions presented by new cell and gene therapies.
In our event archive you can see presentations framing the challenges and responses, as well as other discussions about stop loss coverage implications and emerging commercial solutions.

Deep dive
Precision Financing Strategies
Durable therapies create three financial challenges: Payment timing, therapeutic performance risk, and actuarial risk. The NEWDIGS FoCUS consortium has worked to address the need for new, innovative financing and reimbursement models for durable/potentially curative therapies in the US to ensure patient access and sustainability for all stakeholders.
Called Precision Financing Solutions, our innovative and evolving recommendations can help self-insured employers evaluate their risks and explore combinations of solutions to meet the challenges they face.
Get the Precision Financing Solutions white paper

Hands-on
Paying for Cures Toolkit
The FoCUS Project at MIT NEWDIGS has developed this Toolkit as a resource for practitioners facing the financial challenges of offering, choosing, reimbursing or supporting an advanced durable therapy.
Use the toolkit to assess your situation, survey potential solutions, and start planning for success.

Paying for Cures is an initiative of the FoCUS Project at MIT
FoCUS seeks to collaboratively address the need for new, innovative financing and reimbursement models for durable therapies that ensure patient access and sustainability for all stakeholders. This multi-stakeholder effort unites developers, providers, regulators, patient advocacy groups, payers from all segments of the US healthcare system, and academics working in healthcare policy, financing, and reimbursement.
FoCUS research and design
- Engaged cross-sector, multi-stakeholder group to identify challenges and cooperatively design sustainable solutions
- Analyzed drug pipeline to understand scale of the challenge
- Described system of “Cure Archetypes” and how different kinds of healthcare payers can support them
- Designed and served as a catalyst for Precision Financing pilots to test real-world application
MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation
NEWDIGS Initiative
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E19–604
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
newdigs@mit.edu
Phone: 617-324-9640
Fax: 617-253-0687

