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.