News

The Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI) recently created a Rare Disease Diversity Coalition focused on reducing racial disparities in the rare disease community. Getting a timely and accurate diagnosis for a disease that few people — sometimes even physicians — have heard of is challenging on its own merit.

The Sickle Cell Society of the U.K. has created a survey to gather feedback from people with sickle cell disease (SCD) and their caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the society aims to use data collected to assess if patients and those caring for someone with this disease have…

IMR-687 safely increases the levels of fetal hemoglobin and the number of fetal hemoglobin-producing cells in people with sickle cell disease (SCD), according to early data from an ongoing Phase 2a clinical trial. The findings support the continuation of IMR-687’s clinical development as a potential disease modifying…

While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic won’t have much of an impact on cash available for new biotech startups, it has begun to cause delays in the development of gene therapies to treat a variety of rare diseases. That’s the consensus of industry experts who spoke in a May 26 webinar…

A smartphone app that measures hemoglobin levels using pictures of a person’s inner eyelid may help assess anemia in people with blood disorders such as sickle cell disease, a new study reports.

Taking vitamin D supplements may lower the number of visits to the emergency department due to vaso-occlusive pain episodes in African American children with sickle cell disease (SCD), a study found. The findings also showed that 45% of these children with SCD have vitamin D deficiency. The study, “…

European authorities must step up efforts to screen babies for a multitude of genetic disorders, a panel of experts suggested during a May 14-15 online medical conference. The session was part of the 10th European Conference on Rare Diseases & Orphan Products (ECRD2020) — which was to have occurred…

Dara Riva always had a rule that her 10-year-old son could play video games only once a week. But then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, and her perspective changed. Riva’s son, Maximilian, has cystic fibrosis (CF), making him particularly susceptible to COVID-19 and the complications that can arise from it.

Bluebird Bio extended a partnership with two divisions of Hitachi Chemical for the long-term development and manufacturing of LentiGlobin, its investigational gene therapy for sickle cell disease (SCD), and other potential and approved treatments. The two subsidiaries — Hitachi Chemical Advanced Therapeutics Solutions (HCATS) and Apceth Biopharma — will be in charge…

Hemanext, a medical technology company, is working with the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America (SCDAA) to help people with sickle cell disease through a mix of educational programs, grassroots events, and public-awareness campaigns. “During these very…