Trends in Antiviral Drug Development

Michael J. Sofia, Ph.D. is the Co-founder and former Chief Scientific Officer of Arbutus Biopharma, Inc. where he established the programs in HBV-cure and coronaviruse therapeutics. During his career he has introduced numerous drugs into clinical development for both infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases, including the discovery and early development of sofosbuvir, which became the backbone of many HCV curative therapies. After graduating from the University of Illinois and spending time as an NIH research fellow, he held research and research management positions at Gilead Sciences, Pharmasset, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Transcell Technologies and Eli Lilly. He has received numerous awards for his work on hepatitis C including the 2015 ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award, 2016 IUPAC-Richter Prize, the 2016 Lasker-Debakey Award in Clinical Medical Research, and the 2017 Gertrude Elion Award.

Zhengqiang (ZQ) Wang, Ph.D. is Professor and Director of Chemistry at the Center for Drug Design, College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota. He studied chemistry at Nankai University (China) and obtained his Ph.D. from Wayne State University (USA). He was a postdoc associate with Prof. Bob Vince, the inventor of HIV drug abacavir. As an independent researcher, he has led the medicinal chemistry of multiple sponsored antiviral drug discovery projects targeting important human viral pathogens, including HIV-1, HBV, HCMV and SARS-CoV-2.