It may be the silver bullet. Investors think so, and so far it seems pretty darned convincing.
SIGA Technologies announces that its lead smallpox drug, ST-246, has passed another milestone by demonstrating 100% protection against death in cynomolgus monkeys showing signs of infection with monkeypox virus as part of a primate trial conducted at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. The study included a wide range of doses, all of which successfully prevented death, including a dose that was one one-hundredth of the dose given in prior primate trials. The amount of virus introduced into each animal is usually fatal absent ST-246 (all of the control subjects died), and all of the animals had developed fever and skin lesions prior to the administration of SIGA’s drug.
This drug recently had its first limited human trial under strange circumstances. It was used to treat a child suffering from a life-threatening case of eczema vaccinatum or extensive, life threatening vaccinia infection (a poxvirus used in the standard smallpox vaccine). The child recovered; however, it is not known whether the recovery was due entirely to the action of the drug.
I’ve mentioned this previously here, here, and here.
Links: Reuters, SIGA Technologies
Filed under: WMD, biological weapons, health, homeland security, infectious disease, medicine, science, smallpox
