Medical Policy Guideline for Trofile(TM) Established By Wellp...( Licensee of Blue Cross/Blue Shie...)

Licensee of Blue Cross/Blue Shield in fourteen states establishes

guidelines for use of Trofile

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Monogram Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: MGRM) today announced that Wellpoint, Inc. has established a national Medical Policy Guideline for Monogram's Trofile Assay.

Wellpoint's guidelines provide that HIV tropism testing with Trofile is considered medically necessary for selecting individuals for treatment with CCR5 antagonists (i.e. Selzentry(TM)) for patients who have experienced virologic failure during antiretroviral treatment regimens and who have evidence of ongoing HIV-1 viral replication. Further, these guidelines confirm that Trofile is the only assay approved by Wellpoint for determining coreceptor tropism. Wellpoint has developed medical policies and guidelines that serve as some of the guidelines for coverage decisions by individual plans.

"Through its Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, Wellpoint is one of the largest private healthcare payers in the U.S. and covers almost 35 million lives throughout its networks," said William Welch, Monogram's chief commercial officer. "Many of the individual Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans have been providing coverage for Trofile and we are pleased to see this guideline established at the national level."

Wellpoint, Inc. (formerly Anthem, Inc.) is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent health benefit plans and serves as the Blue Cross and/or Blue Shield licensee in: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Many of these indi
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