News

To mark World Sickle Cell Day, Marja Hurley, a University of Connecticut (UConn) physician-researcher, has been awarded nearly $3 million in research funding to investigate bone loss in people with sickle cell disease (SCD). A four-year $2.21 million endowment comes from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Hurley…

Exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel), an experimental gene-editing cell therapy, increased fetal hemoglobin levels and prevented vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) in 31 people with severe sickle cell disease (SCD), according to new data from the CLIMB-SCD-121 trial. Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, which are jointly developing the therapy, recently launched…

Novartis is partnering with the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to roll out an app in six sub-Saharan African countries to track babies who receive a diagnosis of sickle cell disease (SCD) through newborn screening. The app is already in use in Ghana, where it works to collect…

From sporting the color red to “shining a light” on sickle cell, supporters are set to mark World Sickle Cell Day June 19 to call attention to the inherited blood disorder that affects millions of people globally and about 100,000 in the U.S. In addition to raising awareness, the event…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted both orphan drug and rare pediatric disease designations to inclacumab and GBT601, two experimental therapies for sickle cell disease (SCD) being developed by Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT). These designations confer benefits to therapy developers that are designed to speed…

The UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in California has announced the addition of the Stad Center for Pediatric Pain, Palliative & Integrative Medicine, which is tailored for treating pain in children with disorders such as sickle cell disease. Harboring one of the most innovative and comprehensive programs of its kind in…

Interfering with two newly identified proteins — NFIA and NFIX — involved both directly and indirectly in silencing fetal hemoglobin in red blood cells, could be a new therapeutic approach for sickle cell disease (SCD), according to researchers. Their hypothesis is that inhibiting the production or activity of these…

Treatment with hydroxyurea at the time of conception may be safe, but its use by women with sickle cell disease (SCD) during pregnancy was linked to twofold higher risks of both miscarriage and stillbirth, a U.S. study reported. Pregnant women taking hydroxyurea — used to reduce the frequency…

Multiple daily doses of GBT601, Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT)’s experimental oral therapy for sickle cell disease (SCD), were generally well tolerated and showed promising pharmacological and efficacy signals in six patients in a Phase 1 trial. These results support further evaluation of GBT601 as the potential successor to GBT’s…

The total lifetime medical costs of living with sickle cell disease (SCD) total about $1.6 million for women and $1.7 million for men younger than 65 who hold private health insurance in the U.S., a study found. Researchers concluded that some of these expenses — which are roughly four…