Zyn­te­glo and Skysona com­bine for 16 pa­tient starts since ap­provals last year

Blue­bird bio’s gene ther­a­py Zyn­te­glo, which was ap­proved by the FDA to treat pa­tients with trans­fu­sion-de­pen­dent tha­lassemia last Au­gust, hasn’t had many tak­ers.

Blue­bird said Tues­day in its sec­ond-quar­ter re­sults that 11 pa­tients have start­ed Zyn­te­glo since its launch, though the com­pa­ny said there have been no de­nials from pay­ers, and pri­or au­tho­riza­tion takes about two weeks.

The com­pa­ny re­port­ed a to­tal of $6.8 mil­lion in rev­enue for the quar­ter, at­trib­ut­able to Zyn­te­glo, which costs $2.8 mil­lion per treat­ment, and Skysona, a gene ther­a­py ap­proved last Sep­tem­ber to treat ac­tive cere­bral adrenoleukody­s­tro­phy (CALD). Its stock $BLUE was up about 10% in trad­ing on Tues­day af­ter­noon.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER