EU Seeks To Stockpile Our Smallpox Antiviral, Says U.S. Drugmaker

A US pharmaceutical company says it’s in talks with European authorities seeking to stockpile its antiviral drug for monkeypox amid an unusual international outbreak of a virus that can be deadly in up to one in 10 cases, Natalie Huet reported for Euronews Next.

Photo Insert: Rendering of a smallpox cell

SIGA Technologies, a health security firm whose research was funded by the US government to address the threat posed by biological weapons, has developed an antiviral known as tecovirimat to fight smallpox and related viruses, including monkeypox. Tecovirimat was approved to treat smallpox in the United States, where it’s sold as TPOXX.

Earlier this year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved tecovirimat not only for smallpox, but also for monkeypox and cowpox, which are caused by viruses belonging to the same family of orthopoxviruses.

In recent days, an unusual outbreak of monkeypox cases in Europe and North America - instead of Africa where they’re typically reported - has fueled interest in tecovirimat.

“As you might imagine, a number of the jurisdictions where cases are being found have contacted us and are interested in acquiring the drug as soon as possible,” Dennis Hruby, chief scientific officer at SIGA Technologies, told Euronews Next on Friday, May 20.

SIGA struck a deal with Canada’s health authorities last year to purchase up to $33 million (€31.25 million) worth of treatment by 2026, while the United States already has 1.7 million courses of tecovirimat in its strategic national stockpile.

Just last week, the US Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a contract to SIGA for the procurement of up to $7.5 million (€7.1 million) of the antiviral. Hruby said the DoD is specifically interested in potentially using the drug for post-exposure prophylaxis - before an infection is even confirmed.

“In the US, the drug is only approved to treat symptomatic smallpox, but in fact if you use the drug earlier, when somebody has been exposed or thought to be exposed, you can completely prevent, we believe, any disease whatsoever,” he said.

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