SIGA Technologies gets UK approval for monkeypox drug

SIGA Technologies

08/07/2022 13:23

July 8 (Reuters) - SIGA Technologies Inc  SIGA.O  said on
Friday the UK has approved its oral drug for treatment of
monkeypox amid a surge in cases globally.
    UK's approval for the drug tecovirimat, sold under the brand
Tpoxx in the United States, is also for smallpox, cowpox, as
well as complications caused by the smallpox vaccine, which uses
a different virus from the same group called orthopoxviruses.
    The oral drug is approved in the U.S. and Canada for only
smallpox, but has approval in the European Union for all the
three diseases and the vaccine complication.
    The approval comes on the back of more than 7,600 cases of
monkepox being reported in over 50 countries where the disease
is not endemic, including more than 1,300 in the UK.
    The WHO has reported three deaths, all of them in Africa.
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 (Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak
Dasgupta)
 ((Leroy.Dsouza@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeroyLeo7))