Siga receives £20 million to develop smallpox antiviral
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Siga Technologies has received a further $20 million to accelerate the development of the company's smallpox antiviral ST-246. The funding, from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health, adds to Siga's existing $16.5 million contract with the NIAID, which itself obtained the funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. The funding will help Siga to begin commercial manufacturing of ST-246 in a timely manner, Dr Dennis Hruby, the company's chief scientific officer, said. Siga received a $963,000 grant from the NIAID to help fund its dengue fever antiviral programme earlier this month (Scrip Online, September 16th, 2008).