THREAD: A small syringe company, Retractable Technology Inc., left lawmakers and industry insiders wondering: how can you be a small biz in need of PPP AND a manufacturer able to land a major contract?

In late March, the Dept. of Health and Human Services began drafting a $83.8 MILLION order of roughly 330 million syringes and needles from RTI for a future COVID vaccine campaign.

On April 17th, RTI secured a $1.4 million loan under the #PaycheckProtectionProgram meant for struggling small businesses.

On May 1, the nearly $84 million government contract came through.

RTI’s stock price surged — one of the biggest beneficiaries being hedge fund Renaissance Techologies that bought 1.2 million+ shares. Did their interest have any role in the government support?

. @RepJoshG said we can’t afford to be unprepared when a vaccine is ready but the administration giving a contract to a company that can’t produce the necessary supplies and needs PPP $ has “left a lot of us scratching our heads”

The contract is worth more than double RTI's gross sales for 2019, and it is by nearly 3x the largest agreement RTI had previously reached with the government

It’s still unclear how RTI got this huge deal AND a PPP loan.

But as long as RTI meets basic criteria by keeping its workforce intact, the loan will be forgiven, translating to FREE CASH from TAXPAYERS.

Read more about this story in new reporting from me and @jonallendc for @NBCNews https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/covid-19-helped-small-syringe-business-boom-then-came-taxpayer-n1231656