The mon­key­pox treat­ment and what's com­ing: A con­ver­sa­tion with the CEO mak­ing Tpoxx

Phil Gomez, CEO of Siga Tech­nolo­gies, is hav­ing a busy sum­mer.

His com­pa­ny, which makes the on­ly avail­able mon­key­pox treat­ment, has been prepar­ing for this mo­ment for the last decade, work­ing with a team of sup­pli­ers and ramp­ing up just ahead of the out­break — hop­ing that it would nev­er have to de­ploy its treat­ment.

First ap­proved in 2018 for small­pox, and known as Tpoxx or tecovir­i­mat, the FDA didn’t ini­tial­ly ex­tend the ap­proval to mon­key­pox be­cause the com­pa­ny didn’t run a tri­al pri­or to the cur­rent out­break even though a tri­al could’ve the­o­ret­i­cal­ly been done.

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