In April 2025, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed State Senate Bill S3098 into law, requiring state-regulated health insurers to cover biomarker testing. This legislation signals an important step forward for biomarker testing, a vital tool in modern cancer care.
What Are Biomarkers?
Biomarkers are genes, proteins, or other molecules that provide critical information about a person’s cancer. These markers help clinicians and researchers understand how aggressive a tumor may be, which treatments are likely to work best, and how well a patient is responding to therapy. Biomarkers can be identified in several ways, including analyzing tumor tissue or testing for specific substances in the blood.
Why Biomarker Testing Matters
Many biomarkers are associated with treatment-guiding genetic changes. For example, BRAF (B-Raf proto-oncogene, serine/threonine kinase) is a gene that encodes a protein involved in cell growth and division. Mutations in the BRAF gene can disrupt normal cell-growth signals and lead to cancer. Different BRAF mutations respond to different therapies, making biomarker testing essential for selecting the most effective treatment. BRAF mutations are found in several cancers—including colorectal cancer, thyroid cancer, and melanoma. Notably, nearly half of all melanomas carry a BRAF mutation. These mutations are typically not hereditary and vary from patient to patient.
Other biomarkers, however, do have hereditary components. The BRCA1 (BReast CAncer gene 1) and BRCA2 (BReast CAncer gene 2) genes help repair damaged DNA. Everyone inherits one copy of each gene from their parents. When both copies are altered, cancer risk increases significantly. While about 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, more than 60% of women with harmful BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations will develop breast cancer. These mutations are also linked to elevated risks of ovarian and prostate cancers. Identifying these genetic abnormalities can support cancer prevention strategies and guide treatment decisions if cancer occurs.
Why New Jersey’s Law Matters
By requiring insurance coverage for biomarker testing, New Jersey is helping expand access to a lifesaving tool that supports earlier detection, more precise diagnoses, and highly targeted treatments. As biomarker testing continues to advance, policies like S3098 ensure that more patients can benefit from personalized, evidence-based cancer care.