Marisa Wexler, MS,  senior science writer—

Bluebird Bio has struck a deal with Medicaid in the state of Michigan to allow eligible people with sickle cell disease access to the now-approved gene therapy Lyfgenia (lovotibeglogene autotemcel). The new deal will provide Lyfgenia through an outcomes-based agreement — a financial structure in…

Starting in 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will introduce a pricing model that aims to make new cell and gene therapies more accessible for people with sickle cell disease who are on Medicaid, the health program for lower income residents jointly funded by the…

England’s National Health Service (NHS) is introducing a new genetic test that seeks to make it safer for people with sickle cell disease and other blood disorders to receive transfusions. “Thousands of people living with sickle cell disease and thalassaemia will be eligible for this new world-first blood…

Comer Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago will be one of the first centers in the U.S. to offer new gene therapies for sickle cell disease that were approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “I’m excited on behalf…

Most sickle cell disease (SCD) patients treated with the gene therapy Lyfgenia (lovotibeglogene autotemcel) in clinical trials were free from vaso-occlusive events (VOEs) after a median of three years of follow-up. That’s according to new data from Lyfgenia’s developer, Bluebird Bio, at the 65th American Society of Hematology…

Health regulators in the Kingdom of Bahrain have approved the gene-editing therapy Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel) to treat people with sickle cell disease (SCD) and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia (TDT). This decision makes Bahrain, a small island nation in the Persian Gulf, the second country to approve Casgevy. The therapy was…

The Phase 1/2 BEACON trial, which is testing the gene-editing cell therapy BEAM-101 in people with sickle cell disease (SCD), is expected to dose its first patient before the year’s end. According to Beam Therapeutics, which is developing the therapy for fetal hemoglobin production, the trial is…

An advisory committee to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its meeting on exa-cel — formally exagamglogene autotemcel — ahead of the agency’s approval decision on the gene editing therapy, expected next month. The meeting was scheduled as part of the FDA’s review of exa-cel, which is…

If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the experimental sickle cell disease (SCD) gene therapy lovotibeglogene autotemcel (lovo-cel), its developer Bluebird Bio plans to sell the voucher it will receive that can be redeemed to speed up the review of a future application of a different…

The number of red blood cells that produce the abnormal hemoglobin S (HbS), which characterizes sickle cell disease (SCD), is reduced by the experimental gene therapy BCH-BB694, as is their tendency to take a sickle-like shape. That’s according to single-cell data from seven patients in an ongoing Phase…