About Ted Love
Ted Love, a cardiologist and former CEO of Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT), has continued to advocate for sickle cell disease patients and the biotechnology industry. In 2025, he appeared on a podcast where he discussed his work as chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) and his involvement with the nonprofit Sickle Forward, including a planned climb of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for newborn screening in Africa. Love described GBT's development of the sickle cell drug Oxbryta (voxelotor) and a second-generation therapy, GBT601, which he said could represent a potential pharmacologic cure by nearly completely stopping hemoglobin polymerization. He noted that GBT became the single largest investor in fundamental research for sickle cell disease globally, raising over $1.5 billion, and was acquired by Pfizer for $5.4 billion in 2022.
Love has frequently spoken about health disparities in sickle cell disease, which he has described as a disease that has been "largely ignored" compared to conditions like cystic fibrosis. He has stated that the delivery of care to sickle cell patients is "fraught with racism" and that patients are often stigmatized as drug seekers. Love has called for the passage of the Sickle Cell Treatment Act to fund comprehensive treatment centers and has encouraged providing comprehensive preventative care. As BIO chair, he has focused on reframing the industry's narrative and has opposed Federal Trade Commission actions that he said could hinder small biotech companies from partnering with larger firms to bring innovations to patients worldwide. Love has expressed hope that within the next decade, early diagnosis and effective oral therapies could prevent people from dying from sickle cell disease.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Ted Love's recent appearances.
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Transcript (2 segments)
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Ted Love0:03
Good day everyone, I'm Ted Love. I'm a physician-scientist by training. I began my career in academic medicine in Boston. For the last 30 years, I've been here in California focused on making disease-modifying therapies for some of the world's most egregious diseases, from heart disease to cancer. However, the last 10 years I've focused on sickle cell disease, and that's really why I'm here today. The first thing I want to do is thank all of you at the NCSTC for allowing me to speak with you briefly today.
Many of you already know sickle cell is in fact one of the most egregious diseases in the world. It affects people starting before their first birthday. Many of the patients have debilitating pain crises. Essentially all the patients suffer from profound anemia, which results in progressive multi-organ failure and death prior to their 50th birthday. Unlike many of the other diseases, however, in this country sickle cell disease has been largely ignored. I compare it often to cystic fibrosis, where we provide excellent care to patients, and we were doing this even when I was in training at Yale and later at the Mass General in Boston. This is exactly how it should be for these patients, and it should be the same for patients with sickle cell, but it's not. It's been well-documented, however, that if we provide comprehensive preventative sickle cell care, we can actually not only improve the lives of these patients, we can dramatically reduce the health care costs associated with caring for them. I want to encourage you all to do everything within your power to provide comprehensive sickle cell care for patients here in California, and I stand ready to help you in any way that I possibly can to make that happen. Thank you again for the opportunity.
