SIGA's Pipeline

More good news from SIGA: a $7.7 million grant from the government to develop its drug for Lassa fever and other arenaviruses. According to SIGA's chief scientific officer:

"This grant is similar to the $6.5 million grant for dengue fever drug development awarded to SIGA in May in that both grants are expected to fund development activities that will lead to an investigational new drug application ("IND") that SIGA can file with the FDA."

Dengue fever, by the way, is an enormous potential market. SIGA's lead drug, ST-246, treats a virus no one will catch unless terrorists unleash it (as they well might), but dengue is a growing scourge. It's currently spreading out of Southeast Asia into China, around and across the Pacific into America. The potential profit from a dengue cure would be enormous.

Needless to say, SIGA's stock price appears to be headed into the red for the day on the good news of this grant. Sigh. A SIGA investor's prayer: please, Jesus, let there be no more good news from SIGA for a while so its stock can recover.

Long term, it's great for SIGA to have a thriving pipeline of drugs in development. And it's great to have this income. Between the grants and the whopping prepayment soon due for their smallpox contract, there's little chance they'll need to dilute the stock to fund operations (always a peril with biotechs).

One curious thing. On August 3, SIGA presented to the bigwigs at Goldman Sachs, and their stock immediately crashed on very high volume. Curiously, the other (very bright prospect) biotech presenting to GS that day was DVAX, and their stock also tanked with a very similar chart. It can't possibly be that Sachs found a way to crash both stocks so they could enter cheaply, can it? Well, either way, all good things come to those who wait....very, very patiently!