News

Higher levels of hemoglobin — the protein in red blood cells responsible for oxygen transport — were associated with a lower risk of end-organ damage with sickle cell disease (SCD), a retrospective study has found. The risk was higher for patients with hemoglobin levels below 7 g/dL and increased…

The Sickle Cell Disease Association of America (SCDAA) is collaborating with several pharmaceutical companies in a new initiative aimed at increasing awareness of the blood disorder and promoting clinical trial participation. Along with the SCDAA, the Sickle Cell Disease Collaboration of Advocates for Research, Education, and Science — officially…

An MRI technique to quantify the amount of fat in the bone marrow of people with sickle cell disease (SCD) may be a promising way to track disease severity, a recent study indicates. Patients with more signs of red blood cell destruction (hemolysis) in standard blood tests had less…

Suburban Propane Partners recently teamed up with the American Red Cross, its longtime national collaborator, to host a blood drive in Boston to boost sickle cell disease (SCD) awareness and encourage blood donations. The event was attended by Willie Gross, Boston’s former, and first, African American police commissioner. Some…

AddMedica and Abacus Medicine Pharma Services have partnered to market and distribute the sickle cell disease (SCD) therapy Siklos (hydroxyurea) to patients ages 2 and older across Benelux — the economic region of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. In entering into the partnership, the companies agreed that Siklos…

The safety and feasibility of using motixafortide for stem cell mobilization in people with sickle cell disease (SCD) will be tested in a Phase 1 clinical trial. Stem cell mobilization is an essential step for gene therapies, but currently used mobilization regimens can cause serious side effects in SCD…

Vertex Pharmaceuticals will use ImmunoGen technology to develop less aggressive conditioning approaches for exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel), its experimental gene editing therapy for sickle cell disease (SCD) and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia. Vertex will pay ImmunoGen $15 million up front to use its antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology to…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has placed a clinical hold on FTX-6058, an experimental therapy that Fulcrum Therapeutics is developing to treat sickle cell disease (SCD). Fulcrum announced it would be stopping dosing in an ongoing Phase 1b clinical trial (NCT05169580) that’s testing different…

Jasper Therapeutics’ investigational conditioning therapy briquilimab safely improved the success of stem cell transplants for three people with sickle cell disease (SCD), early Phase 1/2 trial data suggest. Stem cell transplant success was observed in all three patients treated with briquilimab, plus a less-aggressive non-myeloablative conditioning regimen,…

Treatment with hydroxyurea — approved to help reduce pain crises and the need for blood transfusions in sickle cell disease (SCD) — is associated with a higher incidence of spleen removal surgery among children with SCD, according to a recent study. The findings also indicated that SCD children…