Michael J. Sofia, Ph.D. is Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Arbutus Biopharma, Inc. where he established the programs in HBV-cure and coronaviruse therapeutics. During his career he has introduced over 20 drugs into clinical development for both infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases. He is responsible for the discovery and early development of sofosbuvir, which became the backbone of many HCV curative therapies including Sovaldiâ, Harvoniâ, Epclusaâ and Voseviâ. Mike has held research and research management positions at Gilead Sciences, Pharmasset, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Transcell Technologies and Eli Lilly and Company. He holds a BA in chemistry from Cornell University, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under Prof. John Katzenellenbogen and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in the laboratories of Prof. Gilbert Stork. Mike sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of Foresite Labs and is a Trustee of St. Josesph’s University, Philadelphia.
Mike has authored more than 120 publications, 15 book chapters and 54 US patents and has edited several special journal issues on infectious diseases. He edited the definitive 2 volume book on HCV-cure, HCV: The Journey from Discovery to a Cure.
He has received numerous awards for his work on hepatitis C including the 2015 Economist Innovation Award, the 2015 ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award, 2016 IUPAC-Richter Prize, the 2016 Lasker-Debakey Award in Clinical Medical Research, the 2017 Gertrude Elion Award from the International Society for Antiviral Research, the 2018 IS3NA John Montgomery Award and the 2020 Cameron Prize for Therapeutics from the University of Edinburgh. In 2017 he was inducted into the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
