Taking Back Our Stolen History
Siga Technologies
Siga Technologies

Siga Technologies

a public, commercial-stage pharmaceutical company formed in 1995 and focused on providing solutions for unmet needs in the health security market that comprises medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, as well as emerging infectious diseases. The company is headquartered in New York City, with research and development facilities in Corvallis, Oregon. The first thing you see in the ‘About Us’ section of their website is a Bill Gates quote “…the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus…”

They are partnered with BARDA, NIH, CDC, the DOD, the US Army, and others. SIGA is providing countermeasures to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and the Department of Defense (DoD), such as Category A pathogens using BSL-3 or -4 work.

In August 2011, SIGA Technologies was awarded a $7.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop an antiviral drug for treating and preventing Lassa fever and others of arenavirus origin. In the same year, the company was awarded over $400 million contract for their antiviral drug TPOXX by the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for the purpose of its development and distribution. In the same year, the company was ordered to pay $232 million in damages in a legal dispute with PharmAthene over rights to the smallpox drug tecovirimat.

In July 2013, SIGA Technologies delivered about 590,000 courses of its smallpox antiviral drug tecovirimat (Arestvy) to the United States Government’s Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), meeting the requirement of Government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

In 2013, SIGA laid off its entire research and development division located in Corvallis, Oregon. The company liquidated all laboratory equipment at auction from that site.

In May 2018, the FDA advisory committee decided that the benefits of SIGA’s small molecule antiviral treatment, TPOXX, outweigh its potential risks. Later in July, FDA granted the approval of TPOXX to SIGA after the drug was evaluated in 359 healthy human volunteers. In July 2019, SIGA signed a $23 million contract with the United States Department of Defense to create TPOXX’s post-exposure prophylaxis.

In 2021, the company submitted an intravenous version of TPOXX to the FDA for approval.

SIGA was awarded more than $1.1 billion in procurement and development contracts by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority of the U.S. Government (BARDA). The most recent contract with BARDA, primarily for the maintenance of a strategic stockpile of 1.7 million courses of smallpox antiviral therapy, was awarded in September 2018 and has a value in excess of $600 million (if all options are exercised). To date over $101 million in TPOXX® has been delivered under that contract.

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