Interview with Dr. Mark Cockett: Current Trends in Screening for Antiviral Therapeutics

Dr. Mark Cockett is Vice President of Infectious Diseases and Applied Genomics at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). In this interview, we ask Dr. Cockett about considerations that major pharmaceutical companies such as BMS make when screening for and developing antiviral small molecule therapeutics. We discuss the rationale behind an unbiased screening approach that led to recent published work identifying a hepatitis C-specific NS5A inhibitor. We conclude by asking about the emerging role of academia in antiviral drug discovery and future directions of pathogen drug discovery in general.