National Institutes of Health awards funds to local biotech company for work on smallpox treatment

A local biotech company has landed a major federal contract to ramp up its efforts to protect Americans from germ-wielding terrorists.

Siga Technologies Inc. announced Wednesday that it has been awarded $55 million to expand development work on a treatment for smallpox.

The money comes from the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority, with the contract administered by the National Institutes of Health. It’s the company’s richest contract to date and brings total government investment in Siga’s smallpox program to $86.5 million.

Smallpox outbreaks ravaged human populations for thousands of years, with death rates approaching 35 percent. The disease was eradicated in nature 30 years ago but is still considered a potential terrorist threat, and no proven treatment for the deadly virus exists.

Siga Technologies, which is headquartered in New York City and employs about 50 people at its Corvallis laboratories, has been working on a smallpox treatment for several years in partnership with the government. In addition to cash funding, Siga has received access to secure Defense Department labs to test its lead drug candidate, a pill called ST-246, on monkeys.

“We’ve got several (potential) customers here in the U.S.,” said Dennis Hruby, the company’s chief scientific officer. “The major customer is the U.S. government, for stockpiling for public health. We anticipate a second sale to the Department of Defense, for the troops.”

Siga may also be able to market the product to major American hospitals to have on hand in case of an outbreak, and the company is anticipating significant sales in Europe.

“We are already proceeding with European tests in parallel with FDA trials,” Hruby said.

Siga has gone through monkey trials and preliminary human trials with ST-246 and is proceeding toward an application for approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

“We’re just getting ready to do pivotal safety trials in humans at the end of this year,” Hruby said. “That should be the final human test before we go for FDA approval.”

The latest contract will allow Siga to expand its work on ST-246 to produce a preventative form of the drug as well as an intravenous formulation that can be injected into people unable to tolerate the capsules.

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.