SIGA under investigation after NYC’s former COVID czar’s vaccine comments are published

The former employer of New York City’s former Covid czar is being investigated for possible violations of federal securities laws after he told an unidentified woman that the company hired him to “reflect” to the media the facts about a monkeypox drug they produced.

The two New York City-based law firms have filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company’s former chief medical officer and chief executive, Dr. This week, SIGA Technologies launched an investigation on behalf of its investors after Jay Varma was caught making comments on hidden camera.

Varma, who served as former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s senior health advisor, apparently used the media to admit this. “spin stories” To save SIGA’s monkeypox drug, TPOXX, and protect the company’s stock price, according to one of the law firm’s investigations, Levi & Korsinsky.

Highly edited clips of the secret recording between Varma and the alleged undercover agent were released Wednesday as part of conservative podcaster Steven Crowder’s “Mug Club” series.

Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, another law firm investigating potential safety claims on behalf of SIGA investors, said the company is conducting a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of TPOXX in treating Mpox.

But Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz said an Aug. 15 clinical trial found the drug “failed to meet its primary endpoint.”

Varma reportedly said the apparent “spin” campaign was being conducted to persuade investors “not to dump shares thinking the company is worthless,” according to Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz.

SIGA’s shares fell more than 15% after Varma’s comments were announced, the law firm said.

Varma was fired from SIGA on Sept. 19 after he was caught on secret recording bragging about hosting sex parties and attending an underground rave in Manhattan during the height of the pandemic while serving as the city’s COVID czar.

He was also removed from the board of directors of pharmaceutical companies.

SIGA released a statement on Wednesday calling Varma’s comments “inaccurate and misleading.”

“We are deeply angered by his comments and behavior that do not reflect SİGA, our way of doing business and our values.” SIGA stated.

“He is no longer affiliated with SIGA in any way.”

The statement continued: “His recent comments regarding SIGA and TPOXX represent his personal views and relate to areas of our business for which he was not responsible during his one-year tenure as a SIGA employee.”

The edited clips of Varma were reportedly shot with a hidden camera and recorded in New York City between July 27 and August 14.

In the second video, Varma described the Food and Drug Administration approval process while discussing SIGA Technologies’ drug “tekovirimat,” or “TPOXX.”

“That’s why it’s helpful to spin this in the media. “We want the FDA to approve our drugs specifically for monkeypox, and right now it’s only considered experimental and they won’t approve it,” he said.

In the US, TPOXX is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of Mpox but may be used to treat patients as part of a clinical trial known as the Tecovirimat Study for Human Mpox Virus (STOMP). SIGA Technologies.

The company’s website added that the STOMP trial is being conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of TPOXX in treating Mpox.

Varma later said in the video, shot on Aug. 14, that his then-employer was “stuck on our medication” but that people “won’t trust him that much because the data doesn’t seem as strong as it should be.”

“Sometimes you do a study and it’s… nothing works or people get really sick from it,” he said in the undercover recording.

“The problem is, if you do another study, it’s going to take a year or two to do it, because you have to get ethical approval, you have to get money, you have to get the patients to come.”

In the videos, Varma boasted about “how well he knows the reporters” and referenced a story from September. Interview with the New York Times On Mpox touting TPOXX as a medication used to treat Mpox infection.

Varma also described the World Health Organization’s “emergency authorization” process before explaining how he wants the media to report on TPOXX.

“So basically we’re trying to get the media to say: ‘The drug didn’t work because it was designed incorrectly. So they’ll do another study and it’ll probably work,’ and in the meantime people are prescribing it as an emergency drug. This is what we want the story to be,” he said in the edited clip.

Varma added that the risk of Mpox spreading in the U.S. is “very low” and “will almost certainly remain among gay men.”

“(Mpox) basically gets into the sexual networks of gay men… and a lot of gay men have tons of sexual partners and often don’t use condoms, so as a result it spreads more easily,” the doctor said. who before He boasts of hosting sex parties for 10 people during the epidemic.

It was not clear the identity of the woman Varma spoke to or where he met her. The nature of their relationship was also unclear.

Additional reporting by Aneeta Bhole