News

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 develop…

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…

Black women in California with sickle cell disease (SCD) have worse pregnancy outcomes than do Black women in the state who don’t have the inherited blood disorder, a new study reported. For pregnant Black women with SCD, the rates of both stillbirth and pregnancy-related complications are higher, the study…

Louisiana State University’s (LSU) Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs will kick off season six of its Racism: Dismantling the System series on Feb. 15 with a free Zoom presentation on healthcare and people of color. The 3:30 p.m. CST event, presented in partnership with the Sickle Cell Association…

The American Red Cross Central Appalachian Region received $25,000 from the FirstEnergy Foundation on behalf of efforts to support people with sickle cell disease (SCD) and increase the number of Black people who donate blood. The American Red Cross Sickle Cell Initiative aims to improve the quality of…

The risk of pregnancy-related death is about 26 times higher among people with sickle cell disease (SCD) in the U.S. compared with the national average, a recent study reported. The rate of pregnancy-related complications among SCD patients has not improved in recent decades, the results indicate. “People with sickle…