Today is World Sickle Cell Day, an international day to raise awareness and understanding of a disease that can cause debilitating pain and lifelong complications—and in the United States, disproportionately affects African Americans.
What is sickle cell disease? It’s an inherited, lifelong disease in which the body makes “sickle-shaped” red blood cells that can block blood flow, causing pain, organ damage, infection, and other serious complications, as MTS Sickle Cell Foundation explains.
In the United States, it disproportionately affects African Americans. The vast majority of sickle cell patients in the United States are black or African American, with 1 in 13 born with the sickle cell trait, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But there’s hope for people who suffer from it—thanks to an innovative biotech company. In November, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Global Blood Therapeutics’ Oxbryta, the first drug that attacks the underlying cause of sickle cell disease.
And GBT has a black CEO and majority-minority workforce—a reminder of why it’s so important for biotech company leaders and employees to be representative of the patients they serve.
And finally, the disease is receiving more and more scientific attention,as STAT News recently reported.
But there’s still much work to be done to end racial disparities in health care and in the biotech industry. We’ve seen this play out right now, as African Americans are also disproportionately affected by COVID-19 primarily due to long-term disparities in access to health care and exposure to risk.
What can we do? We talked about some solutions during our must-watch discussion on equity, diversity, and inclusion during BIO Digital, which featured GBT’s Dr. Ted Love and Cerevel’s Dr. Tony Coles—and we can start by healing our social genome.
Want to learn more about GBT and sickle cell disease? Listen to our sickle cell episode of the I AM BIO Podcast, which featured GBT’s Dr. Ted Love and Mapillar Dahn, Founder of the My Three Sicklers Sickle Cell Foundation, who has three daughters born with the disease.
Want to learn more about what your company can do to improve diversity and inclusion? Visit www.rightmixmatters.org, BIO’s campaign to provide specific tools to accelerate gender, racial, ethnic and LGBTQ representation on biotech company boards, in C-suites and in functional leadership positions.
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