We finally have new drugs for sickle cell disease. Why are so few patients taking them?

 Oxbryta’s manufacturer says “over 12,000” people have ever filled a prescription, “the vast majority” of them in the U.S. That means only a fraction of the 100,000 Americans living with sickle cell are actively on it. Another treatment approved the same month to reduce pain crises, called Adakveo, has reached still fewer. Even older, more basic interventions are vastly underused.