Precision Medicine Gaps Persist Amid Evidence and Access Challenges: Daryl Pritchard, PhD

Precision medicine has the potential to reshape care; gaps in health care systems, such as fragmented coverage, frameworks, and overall complexity, create significant barriers to this method of care.

The discussion, “Driving Quality in Oncology Medication Use Through Precision Medicine,” at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2026 meeting—comprised of a unique panel of health care professionals—identified gaps within precision medicine, ways to improve them, and evidence supporting the model’s efficiency.

One of the panelists, Daryl Pritchard, PhD, senior VP of The Personalized Medicine Coalition, said in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care^® that data collection and evidence of the model’s success are important to engage stakeholders like payers and providers.

“We need to show that it provides improved clinical outcomes, that it provides downstream overall survival values that are great,” he said. “We also need to show what the financial consequences are and if these technologies are cost-effective, and that evidence needs to be generated with payers and providers at the table.”

Pritchard then went on to exemplify potential tests that can best inform a patient’s course of treatment and reduce disparities, like operationalized biomarker testing in breast cancer. However, there are instances in which patients receive biomarker testing but then don’t receive the “right” treatment decision based on their results.

“There are a lot of reasons why that might happen, but one of them is we need to implement clinical decision support operationally at the point of the electronic health records,” he said.

Additionally, Pritchard emphasized keeping clinicians up to date on the rapidly evolving tests, technologies, and treatments available with “updated clinical decision support tools.”

“I believe that this will be the primary driver to improve these clinical practice gaps to improve implementation and to address these clinical practice gaps,” he said.