Despite some recent setbacks to its sickle cell disease (SCD) pipeline, Pfizer is plowing ahead in improving education around the disease.
The Big Pharma’s U.K. branch unveiled on Monday the first video in a planned two-part series dedicated to sharing the experiences of people living with SCD. The “Our Sickle Cell Story: It’s Time to Listen” series was launched in partnership with My Friend Jen, a U.K.-based organization founded by Jenica Leah, who has sickle cell anemia, to boost awareness of and education about SCD.
The first video is 15 minutes long and comprises a conversation between Shaniqua, a patient advocate living with SCD, and Rossby Awadzi, a doctor and co-founder of the Sickle Cell Education Series platform.
Throughout their conversation, the duo discussed how Shaniqua has learned to talk about her SCD with people she meets, which she said helps build trust and improve relationships while also correcting societal perceptions of the disease—often skewed by racial biases, since SCD predominantly affects Black individuals—and educating more people about what daily life is like with SCD.
The pair also talked about the importance of building that same trust with healthcare providers.
“Healthcare professionals cannot give the best standard of care without knowing the patient, and the patient can’t be free to tell the healthcare professional all of the information they need to know about them without that trust being there,” Shaniqua said.
“For sickle patients, there are so many different stigmas that can impact our lives and treatment options in the longer term, and so you’ll find that patients might be reticent in sharing information,” she continued. “So, having that trust there is absolutely essential.”
Pfizer no longer has any SCD treatments on the market after voluntarily stopping Oxbryta sales last fall, citing clinical information that “now indicates the overall benefit of Oxbryta no longer outweighs the risk,” it said at the time.
The company is still continuing late-stage trials of osivelotor and inclacumab for SCD, though one phase 3 trial of the latter biologic was terminated in early 2024 due to slow recruitment.
The Oxbryta stoppage came not long after the FDA signed off on a pair of gene therapies to treat SCD: Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics’ Casgevy and bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia, both of which were hailed as major steps forward in SCD treatment despite their lofty price tags and complex treatment processes.