{"id":234885,"date":"2026-04-09T23:11:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/without-the-right-tests-the-best-medicines-make-no-difference"},"modified":"2026-04-09T23:11:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:11:55","slug":"without-the-right-tests-the-best-medicines-make-no-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/without-the-right-tests-the-best-medicines-make-no-difference","title":{"rendered":"Without the right tests, the best medicines make no difference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/without-the-right-tests-the-best-medicines-make-no-difference.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A new analysis from UC San Francisco argues that diagnostics\u2014medical tests that match patients to the appropriate treatment\u2014are being overlooked both in the United States and around the world. This is slowing progress against major diseases, despite rapid advances in targeted therapies and precision health.<\/p>\n<p>The authors note that nearly half of the world\u2019s population lacks adequate access to diagnostics. These tests receive less investment for research and development, as well as lower insurance reimbursement than drugs, and this is creating barriers to innovation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost people can easily understand how a new drug or surgery might help a patient,\u201d said Kathryn Phillips, Ph.D., a professor of Health Economics in the School of Pharmacy at UC San Francisco and the lead author of the study, which appears in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.aec0173\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Science<\/i><\/a>. \u201cBut the tests that guide medical decisions are just as critical.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new analysis from UC San Francisco argues that diagnostics\u2014medical tests that match patients to the appropriate treatment\u2014are being overlooked both in the United States and around the world. This is slowing progress against major diseases, despite rapid advances in targeted therapies and precision health. The authors note that nearly half of the world\u2019s population [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,39,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-economics","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}