bluebird bio
NEWS
To help support the launch of Lyfgenia, bluebird bio on Monday entered into a five-year term loan deal with Hercules Capital that will extend the biotech’s cash runway through the first quarter of 2026.
Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics are setting up treatment centers for patients with beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease to compete with bluebird’s established infrastructure.
Under the deal disclosed Thursday in an SEC filing, bluebird bio doubled the number of covered U.S. patients for its sickle cell gene therapy to a cumulative total of around 200 million people.
Cash-strapped bluebird bio is aiming to raise a quarter of a billion dollars through two funding vehicles—a public offering and a deal with finance firm Alterna—to support its general and commercialization operations.
Despite pricing concerns for bluebird bio’s FDA-approved sickle cell disease gene therapy, the biotech has inked a deal with an unnamed commercial payer “representing approximately 100 million covered lives” in the U.S.
These factors, along with bluebird bio’s failure to receive a priority review voucher, all hurt the company’s stock price following Lyfgenia’s approval.
Friday’s FDA approval of Vertex-CRISPR’s Casgevy and bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia has immediately revealed startling differences between these two gene therapies: price and a black-box warning.
The regulator informed bluebird bio that it will not convene an advisory committee meeting to discuss the company’s application for the gene therapy being developed for sickle cell disease.
The biotech company is looking to forge a path to profitability by scaling up the commercial uptake of Zynteglo and winning the FDA’s approval for its lovo-cel gene therapy for sickle cell disease.
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