In a US health care system based largely on fixing problems rather than preventing them, looking for diseases in asymptomatic populations has always been controversial. Concerns around cost-effectiveness and the need to definitively link therapies to improved outcomes have prevented the adoption of screening paradigms for more than a handful of conditions. Diabetes became one of them in January 2005, when CMS added it to its list of reimbursed tests, paving the way for VeraLight Inc. , a new company developing a noninvasive alternative to fasting blood glucose, which is the current standard diabetes screening test.
In fact, a number of factors have come together recently, creating the perfect storm for VeraLight’s diabetes screening technology, says...