The U.S. government will test whether centrally coordinating insurance coverage can help people with sickle cell disease access expensive new gene therapies for the inherited blood condition.
Two such treatments were recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration after testing showed they can eliminate the crises of pain people with severe sickle cell often experience. However, they respectively cost $2.2 million and $3.1 million, raising alarm about their affordability and impact on the budgets of state Medicaid agencies, which cover an estimated 50% to 60% of people living with sickle cell in the U.S.
