February 2026 – Greenlight for regulatory path forwards
We received positive feedback from the FDA following our PreIND (investigational new drug) filing with the FDA in USA. In summary, the FDA advised no further efficacy studies would be required, and agreed on our CMC and initial clinical design plans. They recommended models for safety toxicity preclinical studies as IND enabling. These could use the same, or similar, models we used for efficacy studies where no adverse effects were observed. This gives us a standard and clear regulatory pathway for our product development. It follows our excellent HSV-2 preclinical results with 100% efficacy against disease as a preventative and up to 100% efficacy as a targeted immunotherapeutic, together with the initial results presented for our oncology program which also applies our technology for new cancer treatments. Efficacy results were published (Gompels et al 2022) and presented as invited at the International Society of Vaccines annual congress (Gompels et al 2023 and 2025).
March 2026 – Affiliate Milner Therapeutics Institute, Cambridge
Virothera was appointed Affiliate company following the prestigious Bio-incubator at the leading Milner Therapeutic Institute at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the largest centre of medical research and health science in Europe.
May-June 2026 – Patents granted for our novel immunomodulator technology
Patent allowances for our novel immunomodulator from JPO, Japan Patent Office, now granted, and USPTO, USA Patent Office, validating our technology.
June 2026 – Selected for Novo Nordisk NOME mentor program in Boston, USA
Virothera was honoured to be selected for the Boston, USA program organised by the elite Novo Nordisk sponsored Nordic mentors for entrepreneurs (NOME). Virothera Ltd is one of the first UK companies in this expert program and was part of a cohort of six companies selected for presentation in Boston, hosted by the Denmark Innovation Centre. It was an excellent program including prominent stakeholders in innovative emerging company development.
July 2026 – UKRI Industry PhD award at Cambridge, UK, conference presentation
Virothera was awarded a UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) iCASE industry PhD studentship, in collaboration between Associate Professor Charlotte Houldcroft in Genetics with our CEO Dr Ursula Gompels, now a visiting Professor in Genetics at the University of Cambridge, as co-supervisor. Our PhD student presented an annual report and a poster at the UKRI BBSRC Doctoral training program conference, ‘Genomic and Immunological Analyses of a Novel Immunotherapeutic for Chronic Virus Infections’.
August 2026 – Senior Pharma executive joins Scientific Advisory Board
We welcomed to our Scientific Advisory Board Professor Rhonda Cardin, who most recently served as Executive Director of anti-infectives at Pfizer Plc.
Rhonda’s research has focused on herpesvirus pathogenesis and latency, virus-host interactions, and in vivo evaluation of herpesvirus antivirals and vaccines. Her introduction to CMV pathogenesis and latency was during her postdoc training in the lab of Professor Ed Mocarski at Stanford University School of Medicine. After Stanford, Rhonda joined the lab of Peter Doherty, 1996 Nobel laureate in Medicine on T cell immunology, at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where she utilized a murine infection model to understand T cell control of human EBV infection. In 1998, Rhonda joined Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals as Sr. Scientist and developed antiviral HSV and CMV screening models. After Pfizer’s acquisition of Parke-Davis, she joined ChemoCentryx (Amgen acquisition) and conducted CMV viral chemokine receptor studies to develop potential CMV therapeutics antivirals. In 2003, Rhonda became a faculty member in Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center where her lab focused on CMV pathogenesis and latency. At CCHMC Rhonda collaborated with David Bernstein on in vivo evaluation of novel CMV & HSV antivirals and vaccines.
In 2016, she became Professor of Virology and Associate Dean of Research at LSU, continuing her CMV research and serving as PI/Director of three NIH Centers of Excellence focused on Emerging Infectious Diseases, Lung Biology and Disease, and Preclinical Cancer Research.
In February 2021, Rhonda joined Pfizer as Executive Director of Anti-Infectives and led the preclinical SARS-CoV-2 studies leading to FDA Approval of PAXLOVID, Pfizer’s oral COVID-19 Mpro inhibitor Rhonda also led the preclinical studies for the NextGen Mpro inhibitor, Ibuzatrelvir, currently in Phase 3 studies, as well as additional antiviral Pfizer programs. Rhonda has been a member of ISAR since 2003, previously served two terms on the Board of Directors and has been the Chair of the Women in Science Committee since 2013.
Rhonda co-directed our first NIH/NIAID awarded preclinical services program while Director of the NIH Centers of excellence and we are fortunate to have her leading Pharma expertise on our Advisory as we advance our programs for clinical evaluation of our novel gene immunotherapy for infectious disease and cancer.