May 18, 2025 • 16 mins
Terri Booker’s body burns with pain. She’s one of the 100,000 Americans living with sickle cell disease – a blood disorder that can cause severe pain, organ failure, and even premature death. The genetic condition came about to protect against malaria. Dr. William Hobbs leads clinical development for sickle cell disease at Vertex, and they are investigating multiple approaches to address the unmet needs that patients face.
This episode of Targeting the Toughest Diseases is sponsored by Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Since you're a subscriber to this Bloomberg podcast, we thought
you'd be interested in a six episode sponsored podcast called
Targeting the Toughest Diseases, produced by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Bloomberg
Media Studios. It explores the innovative tools, methods, and unique
philosophy Vertex Pharmaceuticals is using to search for treatments for
(00:22):
some of humanity's most challenging diseases. Here's a recent episode,
and it's like.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
If someone grabs your body and twists in the opposite
direction with each hand, it's like you can feel the
pressure in your bones and you can just feel every
part of your body is hurting.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Twenty years ago, during her sophomore year in college, Terry
Booker was hit with the worst pain of her life.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
My legs were burning in then it just went up
throughout my whole entire body to the point where I
was unconscious and I was put on life support. I
wasn't able to breathe on my own. They told my
mom I had kidney failure, I had lung failure.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
There was no clear path to treatment for her, just uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They said, you just prayed because we don't know what's
going to happen to her.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
What happened was she got better for a while, but
then the pain returned and she was back in the
emergency room. Her recurring visits to the er seeking relief
from the pain revealed a second problem, not a medical one,
a societal one. Terry is black, and as an African
American woman seeking pay meds, she was presumed to be
(01:51):
a drug addict and her medical issues were ignored.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It is infuriating because when you go into the er,
you're expecting to receive help. You're expecting to be treated
as a patient the need of something, not treated as
someone who is wanting to get their next high.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Hi. I'm Jordan Gospore. I'm a member of the University
of Southern California's Center for Health Journalism. This is Targeting
the Toughest Diseases a podcast produced by Bloomberg Media Studios
and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In this series, we look at some
of humanity's most challenging diseases and how Vertex, a Boston
(02:36):
based biotech company, is using innovative tools, methods, and a
unique philosophy to search for treatments and cures. Today, we're
looking at. Sickle cell disease a blood disorder which can
cause organ failure, stroke, and even death. It's a disease
that affects roughly one hundred thousand Americans, including Terry Booker.
(03:03):
Sickle cell disease is not something you catch. It's a
genetic condition you're born with. Often babies are diagnosed before
they're even born. Terry was an exception. She didn't know
she had it until she was eleven.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
They pricked my finger and I remember them putting it
under a microscope, and when they had it under a microscope,
all these people were rushing over and I remember this
so vividly, and they were like, oh, come here, come, Look.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Terry was in fifth grade and her mam had taken
her to the doctors because she had been complaining of pain.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And I'm like okay, and they say you see all
these little funny shaped cells and I'm like yeah. They're like, yeah,
that's sickle cell and I said okay, and I'm like,
well what does that mean.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sickle cell disease, or sickle cell anemia, as it's often called,
affects red blood cells. Those are the cells that carry
oxygen to all the tissues in our bodies. Normally, our
red blood cells are soft and shaped like a doughnut,
so they can squeeze through even the smallest of blood vessels.
But sickle cell disease changes them. Specifically, it causes the
(04:19):
hemoglobin proteins inside the red blood cells to change their structure.
Instead of being donut shaped, they become curved like a
cresset moon, or, as the name implies, like a sickle.
These odd shaped cells are also hard and sticky, which
means sometimes they can't flow smoothly through blood vessels, and
(04:40):
when that happens, they start piling up like cars on
a busy highway, making it really hard, if not impossible,
for oxygen to reach where it needs to go. It's
that lack of oxygen to tissues that causes the stabbing pain.
That's the medical side of the disease, but as Terry
mentioned earlier, there's also a societal component.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
To address circle cell disease, we also have to address
the fundamental issues that relate to systemic racism and how
it impacts on assets to care.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
That's doctor Isaac Odame. He studies the ways racism and
medical care intersect when it comes to sickle cell disease.
He's the medical director of the Global Sickle Cell Disease
Network at the Center for Global Child Health. Doctor Odame
grew up in West Africa.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Psyco cell disease was something that I was very familiar with.
Not only did I have this some family members who
had children with psycosol disease, but some classmates and schoolmates
who also lived with the condition. So I was exposed
very early to the ravages of this disease.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The first documented case of psycle cell anemia in America
was in nineteen ten, just over a century ago, but
its history dates back thousands of years.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Sucer cell disease has been known for centuries in parts
of Africa, and if you go into the oral tradition,
they did have descriptions of the disease which typified the
chronic and intercurrent as creating pain associative of the disease.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Oddly enough, the mutation that changes the cell shapes was
once an evolutionary advantage protecting against malaria.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
It predominantly affects people of African descent because malaria is
very endemic in Africa. It occurs in people of Indian descent,
Mediterranean descent, and parts of the Middle East Arabian Peninsula,
and when you look at the common link between all
these areas is malaria anddemicity. So it was a survival
(06:57):
advantage it provided against malaria, and the percentages of people
with traits in the population will rise over time.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Having sickle cell trait is actually quite common in African populations.
It evolved over time because it prevents the development and
spreading of malaria. That historical context explains why the majority
of sickle cell patients in the United States are African Americans.
That means sickle cell care provides a clear example of
the racial inequities and disparities in the medical system. That
(07:28):
includes access to care and quality of care, both of
which are lower for African Americans. Doctor Odami is hopeful
that sickle cell treatments in development will not just treat
the disease, but will address those other complex issues as well.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I think more and more the patients are becoming more empowered,
and I think they call themselves warriors, which is the
appropriate term. They're not only dealing with the ravages of
the disease, but they're also having to fight a system
that doesn't recognize their needs appropriately, and so the warriors
(08:05):
are beginning to speak out aloud. The system is beginning
to respond.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a leader in that response.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
For it to actually help people's lives, it has to
work for them and it has to work for society.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
That's doctor David Altcheler, the chief scientific officer at Vertex.
They have a unique approach to choosing the diseases they target.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
Vertex has decided to focus on a set of diseases
where we see great unmet need, where we see the
human biology is clear, and we feel that we have
the technology, the insights, the wherewithal to make a difference.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
When it comes to Vertex's sickle cell program, Doctor William
Hobbs is in charge of clinical development.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
You know, I started in medicine being interested in hematology
and sickle cell disease in particular, mainly from a research standpoint,
and that was because disease has long been considered a
disease where the underlying cause of disease could be targeted,
if innovative approaches could be identified, and so I really
(09:12):
came at it from this scientific point of view, and
then along the way I started to meet sickle cell
disease patients and their families coordinate their care and realized
there was really a lot more to it than a
just a scientific question. And early on in my academic
career as a physician scientist, I started an adult sickle
(09:32):
cell disease treatment center, and I still remember this. One
of the first patients that I started seeing was a
woman who had long standing and severe disease, and at
her first clinic visit with me, as she walked in,
sat down and said, Hi, doctor Hobbs, I've just got
to know one thing, and that is if I ever
(09:53):
need you, if I'm in an emergency room or a hospital,
it's two in the morning, it's a night, it's a weekend,
I just need to know that you're there on the
other end of the phone twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week, whenever I need you, because if
you're not, then there's no reason for me to be here.
And it was that awareness that I realized at that
(10:14):
point that if you're going to take care of patients
living with sickle cell disease, that you really need to
be all in.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That's a big ask.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
It was a big ass but you know, it's actually
a fair ask. And I think if you look at
the history of how sickle cell disease patients have generally
been treated by the medical system. I think sickle cell
patients aren't asking for anything unique or above and beyond
or special. They're really asking for equitable care and what
we would offer to anyone else with the chronic severe disease.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So what treatment options are available for patients with sickle
cell disease?
Speaker 6 (10:49):
Yeah, you know, the causal biology of sickle cell disease
has been known for many years, but for a long time,
the only therapies available were able to reduce, but not
really eliminate complications of disease in some but not all patients.
And we've come a long way in the last few years,
but there's still a lot of work yet to be done.
(11:11):
And I often think about the sickle cell disease patients
that I've cared for over the years, knowing that they
were in desperate need of new treatment options, and so,
you know, we continue to look at multiple angles and
innovative options with the goal of treating the underlying cause
of the disease.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I'm curious, from Vertex's point of view, why has Vertex
decided to invest so heavily in R and D specifically
with sickle cell.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
For the most part, sickle cell disease has been largely
ignored by the pharmaceutical industry for a long time, and
I think there's always historically been a perception that it's
a very difficult disease to go into from a commercial
and marketing standpoint. However, if one has an approach that's
based on solid biology and reckon is the unmet need
(12:01):
that exists in sickle cell disease, where there's millions of
patients waiting worldwide, it becomes very compelling to do it.
And so this is really about patients. It's understanding the
medical need, it's understanding the causal biology and then innovating
on treatment approaches, which is what we ad Vertex do.
And you could say that it's this is in our DNA.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Sickle cell isn't a new disease. There's been a lot
of work done and a lot of innovation. What is
VerTech bringing to this that's new.
Speaker 6 (12:32):
Our aim is to investigate multiple different types of approaches
that can give us the best opportunities to hopefully treat
the causal biology of sickle cell disease for as many
patients as possible. Whenever you do something like that, there
are a number of unknown questions that have to be answered,
both scientific and medical, and we're learning to understand what
(12:53):
all of those are. And I think what we're also
understanding is that for diseases like sickle cell disease, where
there's such a huge need for treatment options, that serial
innovation is required. And I think this is a focus
for us to continue to innovate, because, as we all know,
technology doesn't stand still, and so neither should we.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
That's the approach philosophically, but what does it actually look
like when you put it into practice.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
We've learned a lot from natural history studies and a
lot of other data about how we hope to be
able to target causal biology with the aim of treating
the effects of sickle cell disease. So for Vertex, it
really begins with a deep scientific insight into causal biology
and then serially innovating using all available tools and modalities
(13:39):
to identify potential treatment options. And so it's essentially identifying
the right tool for the job. And one of the
things that's unique about Vertex and the approach is just
that it's so completely focused on the patient and what
the potential treatment outcomes could be. And so the focuses
really have we identified and cracked the right science that
(14:00):
can translate into something that could be meaningful for patients.
So it's the goal is a high bar, and we
do that relentlessly. We do it very aggressively, and we
constantly strive to out innovate even ourselves within our own
programs here, and that's how we do science and develop medicines.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
The research, the testing, and the potential approvals are moving
forward as quickly as possible, and in the meantime, Terry
Booker is just trying to live her best life.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I exercise, I hang out with my kat Lewis, who
I love and who he always knows when it's something
wrong because he'll stay under me a little bit longer
or a little bit more. And I cook often. I
cook most of my meals. And when I say I
cook every day, I cook every day. And I pray.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
What she's praying for ultimately is a cure. Terry says,
until that happens, she'll continue to keep the faith.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
My faith has grown so much through this process because
I feel like as a human, I feel like it's
no way I could be going through these things. I
should be in a whole crying somewhere.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
So our pain is real and we cope and we
do what we have to do.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
To try to live a quote unquote normal life.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
But our pain is real. And when people understand that,
I feel like you can understand a sickle cell patient.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
This is targeting the toughest diseases. A podcast from Bloomberg
Media Studios and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. If you like what you hear,
subscribe and leave us a review. I'm Jordan Gospore. Thanks
for listening.
Since you're a subscriber to this Bloomberg podcast, we thought
you'd be interested in a six episode sponsored podcast called
Targeting the Toughest Diseases, produced by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Bloomberg
Media Studios. It explores the innovative tools, methods, and unique
philosophy Vertex Pharmaceuticals is using to search for treatments for
(00:22):
some of humanity's most challenging diseases. Here's a recent episode,
and it's like.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
If someone grabs your body and twists in the opposite
direction with each hand, it's like you can feel the
pressure in your bones and you can just feel every
part of your body is hurting.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Twenty years ago, during her sophomore year in college, Terry
Booker was hit with the worst pain of her life.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
My legs were burning in then it just went up
throughout my whole entire body to the point where I
was unconscious and I was put on life support. I
wasn't able to breathe on my own. They told my
mom I had kidney failure, I had lung failure.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
There was no clear path to treatment for her, just uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They said, you just prayed because we don't know what's
going to happen to her.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
What happened was she got better for a while, but
then the pain returned and she was back in the
emergency room. Her recurring visits to the er seeking relief
from the pain revealed a second problem, not a medical one,
a societal one. Terry is black, and as an African
American woman seeking pay meds, she was presumed to be
(01:51):
a drug addict and her medical issues were ignored.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It is infuriating because when you go into the er,
you're expecting to receive help. You're expecting to be treated
as a patient the need of something, not treated as
someone who is wanting to get their next high.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Hi. I'm Jordan Gospore. I'm a member of the University
of Southern California's Center for Health Journalism. This is Targeting
the Toughest Diseases a podcast produced by Bloomberg Media Studios
and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In this series, we look at some
of humanity's most challenging diseases and how Vertex, a Boston
(02:36):
based biotech company, is using innovative tools, methods, and a
unique philosophy to search for treatments and cures. Today, we're
looking at. Sickle cell disease a blood disorder which can
cause organ failure, stroke, and even death. It's a disease
that affects roughly one hundred thousand Americans, including Terry Booker.
(03:03):
Sickle cell disease is not something you catch. It's a
genetic condition you're born with. Often babies are diagnosed before
they're even born. Terry was an exception. She didn't know
she had it until she was eleven.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
They pricked my finger and I remember them putting it
under a microscope, and when they had it under a microscope,
all these people were rushing over and I remember this
so vividly, and they were like, oh, come here, come, Look.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Terry was in fifth grade and her mam had taken
her to the doctors because she had been complaining of pain.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And I'm like okay, and they say you see all
these little funny shaped cells and I'm like yeah. They're like, yeah,
that's sickle cell and I said okay, and I'm like,
well what does that mean.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sickle cell disease, or sickle cell anemia, as it's often called,
affects red blood cells. Those are the cells that carry
oxygen to all the tissues in our bodies. Normally, our
red blood cells are soft and shaped like a doughnut,
so they can squeeze through even the smallest of blood vessels.
But sickle cell disease changes them. Specifically, it causes the
(04:19):
hemoglobin proteins inside the red blood cells to change their structure.
Instead of being donut shaped, they become curved like a
cresset moon, or, as the name implies, like a sickle.
These odd shaped cells are also hard and sticky, which
means sometimes they can't flow smoothly through blood vessels, and
(04:40):
when that happens, they start piling up like cars on
a busy highway, making it really hard, if not impossible,
for oxygen to reach where it needs to go. It's
that lack of oxygen to tissues that causes the stabbing pain.
That's the medical side of the disease, but as Terry
mentioned earlier, there's also a societal component.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
To address circle cell disease, we also have to address
the fundamental issues that relate to systemic racism and how
it impacts on assets to care.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
That's doctor Isaac Odame. He studies the ways racism and
medical care intersect when it comes to sickle cell disease.
He's the medical director of the Global Sickle Cell Disease
Network at the Center for Global Child Health. Doctor Odame
grew up in West Africa.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Psyco cell disease was something that I was very familiar with.
Not only did I have this some family members who
had children with psycosol disease, but some classmates and schoolmates
who also lived with the condition. So I was exposed
very early to the ravages of this disease.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The first documented case of psycle cell anemia in America
was in nineteen ten, just over a century ago, but
its history dates back thousands of years.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Sucer cell disease has been known for centuries in parts
of Africa, and if you go into the oral tradition,
they did have descriptions of the disease which typified the
chronic and intercurrent as creating pain associative of the disease.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Oddly enough, the mutation that changes the cell shapes was
once an evolutionary advantage protecting against malaria.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
It predominantly affects people of African descent because malaria is
very endemic in Africa. It occurs in people of Indian descent,
Mediterranean descent, and parts of the Middle East Arabian Peninsula,
and when you look at the common link between all
these areas is malaria anddemicity. So it was a survival
(06:57):
advantage it provided against malaria, and the percentages of people
with traits in the population will rise over time.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Having sickle cell trait is actually quite common in African populations.
It evolved over time because it prevents the development and
spreading of malaria. That historical context explains why the majority
of sickle cell patients in the United States are African Americans.
That means sickle cell care provides a clear example of
the racial inequities and disparities in the medical system. That
(07:28):
includes access to care and quality of care, both of
which are lower for African Americans. Doctor Odami is hopeful
that sickle cell treatments in development will not just treat
the disease, but will address those other complex issues as well.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I think more and more the patients are becoming more empowered,
and I think they call themselves warriors, which is the
appropriate term. They're not only dealing with the ravages of
the disease, but they're also having to fight a system
that doesn't recognize their needs appropriately, and so the warriors
(08:05):
are beginning to speak out aloud. The system is beginning
to respond.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a leader in that response.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
For it to actually help people's lives, it has to
work for them and it has to work for society.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
That's doctor David Altcheler, the chief scientific officer at Vertex.
They have a unique approach to choosing the diseases they target.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
Vertex has decided to focus on a set of diseases
where we see great unmet need, where we see the
human biology is clear, and we feel that we have
the technology, the insights, the wherewithal to make a difference.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
When it comes to Vertex's sickle cell program, Doctor William
Hobbs is in charge of clinical development.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
You know, I started in medicine being interested in hematology
and sickle cell disease in particular, mainly from a research standpoint,
and that was because disease has long been considered a
disease where the underlying cause of disease could be targeted,
if innovative approaches could be identified, and so I really
(09:12):
came at it from this scientific point of view, and
then along the way I started to meet sickle cell
disease patients and their families coordinate their care and realized
there was really a lot more to it than a
just a scientific question. And early on in my academic
career as a physician scientist, I started an adult sickle
(09:32):
cell disease treatment center, and I still remember this. One
of the first patients that I started seeing was a
woman who had long standing and severe disease, and at
her first clinic visit with me, as she walked in,
sat down and said, Hi, doctor Hobbs, I've just got
to know one thing, and that is if I ever
(09:53):
need you, if I'm in an emergency room or a hospital,
it's two in the morning, it's a night, it's a weekend,
I just need to know that you're there on the
other end of the phone twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week, whenever I need you, because if
you're not, then there's no reason for me to be here.
And it was that awareness that I realized at that
(10:14):
point that if you're going to take care of patients
living with sickle cell disease, that you really need to
be all in.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
That's a big ask.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
It was a big ass but you know, it's actually
a fair ask. And I think if you look at
the history of how sickle cell disease patients have generally
been treated by the medical system. I think sickle cell
patients aren't asking for anything unique or above and beyond
or special. They're really asking for equitable care and what
we would offer to anyone else with the chronic severe disease.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
So what treatment options are available for patients with sickle
cell disease?
Speaker 6 (10:49):
Yeah, you know, the causal biology of sickle cell disease
has been known for many years, but for a long time,
the only therapies available were able to reduce, but not
really eliminate complications of disease in some but not all patients.
And we've come a long way in the last few years,
but there's still a lot of work yet to be done.
(11:11):
And I often think about the sickle cell disease patients
that I've cared for over the years, knowing that they
were in desperate need of new treatment options, and so,
you know, we continue to look at multiple angles and
innovative options with the goal of treating the underlying cause
of the disease.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I'm curious, from Vertex's point of view, why has Vertex
decided to invest so heavily in R and D specifically
with sickle cell.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
For the most part, sickle cell disease has been largely
ignored by the pharmaceutical industry for a long time, and
I think there's always historically been a perception that it's
a very difficult disease to go into from a commercial
and marketing standpoint. However, if one has an approach that's
based on solid biology and reckon is the unmet need
(12:01):
that exists in sickle cell disease, where there's millions of
patients waiting worldwide, it becomes very compelling to do it.
And so this is really about patients. It's understanding the
medical need, it's understanding the causal biology and then innovating
on treatment approaches, which is what we ad Vertex do.
And you could say that it's this is in our DNA.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Sickle cell isn't a new disease. There's been a lot
of work done and a lot of innovation. What is
VerTech bringing to this that's new.
Speaker 6 (12:32):
Our aim is to investigate multiple different types of approaches
that can give us the best opportunities to hopefully treat
the causal biology of sickle cell disease for as many
patients as possible. Whenever you do something like that, there
are a number of unknown questions that have to be answered,
both scientific and medical, and we're learning to understand what
(12:53):
all of those are. And I think what we're also
understanding is that for diseases like sickle cell disease, where
there's such a huge need for treatment options, that serial
innovation is required. And I think this is a focus
for us to continue to innovate, because, as we all know,
technology doesn't stand still, and so neither should we.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
That's the approach philosophically, but what does it actually look
like when you put it into practice.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
We've learned a lot from natural history studies and a
lot of other data about how we hope to be
able to target causal biology with the aim of treating
the effects of sickle cell disease. So for Vertex, it
really begins with a deep scientific insight into causal biology
and then serially innovating using all available tools and modalities
(13:39):
to identify potential treatment options. And so it's essentially identifying
the right tool for the job. And one of the
things that's unique about Vertex and the approach is just
that it's so completely focused on the patient and what
the potential treatment outcomes could be. And so the focuses
really have we identified and cracked the right science that
(14:00):
can translate into something that could be meaningful for patients.
So it's the goal is a high bar, and we
do that relentlessly. We do it very aggressively, and we
constantly strive to out innovate even ourselves within our own
programs here, and that's how we do science and develop medicines.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
The research, the testing, and the potential approvals are moving
forward as quickly as possible, and in the meantime, Terry
Booker is just trying to live her best life.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I exercise, I hang out with my kat Lewis, who
I love and who he always knows when it's something
wrong because he'll stay under me a little bit longer
or a little bit more. And I cook often. I
cook most of my meals. And when I say I
cook every day, I cook every day. And I pray.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
What she's praying for ultimately is a cure. Terry says,
until that happens, she'll continue to keep the faith.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
My faith has grown so much through this process because
I feel like as a human, I feel like it's
no way I could be going through these things. I
should be in a whole crying somewhere.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
So our pain is real and we cope and we
do what we have to do.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
To try to live a quote unquote normal life.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
But our pain is real. And when people understand that,
I feel like you can understand a sickle cell patient.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
This is targeting the toughest diseases. A podcast from Bloomberg
Media Studios and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. If you like what you hear,
subscribe and leave us a review. I'm Jordan Gospore. Thanks
for listening.
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