Ver­tex touts Cas­gevy sick­le cell launch as blue­bird makes progress with ri­val Lyf­ge­nia

Ver­tex said it’s mak­ing strong progress bring­ing its CRISPR Ther­a­peu­tics-part­nered gene ther­a­py to pa­tients af­ter a land­mark ap­proval for sick­le cell dis­ease in De­cem­ber.

Chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer Stu­art Ar­buck­le said Mon­day that more than 25 treat­ment sites for the ther­a­py, called Cas­gevy, have been ac­ti­vat­ed world­wide. As of mid-April, “five pa­tients al­ready had cells col­lect­ed” — a first ma­jor step in the treat­ment process. The com­pa­ny de­clined to say how far along the pa­tients are in the process or whether more have start­ed since then.

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