Free Republic

FDA approves drug to treat smallpoxDisease considered eradicated in 1980 but drug development for smallpox is an important component for medical countermeasure response [6/4/2021] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Tembexa (brincidofovir) to treat smallpox. Although the World Health Organization declared smallpox, a contagious and sometimes fatal infectious disease, eradicated in 1980, there have been longstanding concerns that the virus that causes smallpox, the variola virus, could be used as a bioweapon. Before its eradication in 1980, the variola virus mainly spread by direct contact among people. Symptoms typically began 10 to 14 days after infection and included...

Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who is fighting a severe Ebola infection in Dallas, is getting an experimental treatment, the hospital announced Monday. The drug is an investigational medication, brincidofovir, for Ebola Virus Disease. Chimerix, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company today announced that brincidofovir has been provided for potential use in patients with Ebola Virus Disease. ...

Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

A pediatric cancer charity is offering to pay for 7-year-old cancer survivor Josh Hardy to receive lifesaving medication that could cure him of a potentially deadly virus. But Chimerix, the pharmaceutical company that produces the medication, is still refusing to give Josh the treatment he so desperately needs. In fact, a representative for the charity said he tried speaking with Chimerix CEO Kenneth Moch about Josh's case - but Moch hung up on him. **SNIP** Josh’s mother, Aimee Hardy, has appealed to Moch to grant Josh emergency access to the medication, but the company is refusing to make an exception....

imee Hardy says her son is in agony. He has battled cancer on and off, and now he's in jeopardy again due to complications from a bone marrow transplant. Doctors believe Brincidofovir could save his life, but the maker of the drug won't provide it. Chimerix is the company that makes Brincidofovir. They're facing a major ethical dilemma because they say there are hundreds if not thousands of people who need it, but if they give it to patients like Josh, it will slow down their efforts to make it widely available. They hope that will happen in 2016 if...