At just 22, Daniel Cressy of Metairie has stepped into Louisiana medical history as the first person in the state to receive an FDA-approved gene therapy designed to cure sickle cell disease, following treatment at Manning Family Children’s Hospital. Staffers turned the normally quiet hallway into a mini celebration last Tuesday, snapping selfies and cheering him on. Cressy says the therapy gives him a real shot at long-held dreams, including plans to become a licensed pilot, while hospital leaders are calling the moment a major leap for in-state care.
Photos published by NOLA.com show Cressy surrounded by clinicians and staff at Manning Family Children’s, smiling for group shots and phone cameras after his infusion last Tuesday. The images, credited to photographer Chris Granger, appeared in a photo gallery that ran Monday.
How the therapy works
The treatment Cressy received is exagamglogene autotemcel, sold under the brand name Casgevy, a CRISPR-based autologous stem cell therapy that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved in December 2023, according to FDA. As described by Louisiana Illuminator, the process involves collecting a patient’s hematopoietic stem cells through apheresis, sending those cells to a manufacturing lab for gene editing, and then reinfusing the modified cells after the patient receives conditioning chemotherapy. In Cressy’s case, local reporting notes that his cells were shipped overseas for that work. In its approval materials, the FDA reported that clinical trials showed a sharp reduction in painful vaso-occlusive crises for most patients who received the therapy.
A chance to fly
Cressy has been a patient at Manning Family Children’s since childhood and says the gene therapy could finally clear the medical hurdle that has kept the Federal Aviation Administration from granting him a pilot medical certificate. He received his infusion on March 18 and told WWL, "Mentally, it's something that has me really excited right now that I just got cured of a disease I've lived with my whole life." Physicians say he will remain under close watch for several weeks while they see whether the edited cells engraft and start producing healthy hemoglobin.
Cost and access remain hurdles
The medical breakthrough comes with a steep price tag and complicated logistics. Casgevy carries a U.S. list price of about $2.2 million, and only a limited number of centers are currently equipped to deliver the therapy, according to Reuters. In Louisiana, the state’s Sickle Cell Commission reports that Medicaid covers roughly 3,000 residents with the disease, and newborn screening has identified about 70 infants with hemoglobin disorders in recent years. Advocates and clinicians say that boosting in-state capacity and speeding up insurance approvals will be critical if more patients are going to see the benefit of treatments like this.
What this means locally
Manning Family Children’s describes itself as the only pediatric hospital in Louisiana that offers both bone marrow transplant and gene therapy for sickle cell disease, which allows more families to complete the entire treatment process without traveling out of state. Hospital leaders and Tulane clinicians told Tulanian that Cressy’s case is an early step in building the referral networks, manufacturing pipeline, and long-term follow-up systems that patients across the Gulf South will need as these therapies become more common.
Cressy will remain under close observation while his care team monitors blood markers to see whether the edited cells take hold. If the new cells provide lasting production of healthy hemoglobin, clinicians say his recovery could help drive more referrals and encourage insurers to sign off on similar cases, potentially widening access throughout the state. Local outlets have been following his journey since his stem cell collection last summer; photos from last week’s hospital celebration are posted at NOLA.com, and fuller background coverage is available from Louisiana Illuminator.
