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Michael Cordingley MA (Cantab), PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Mike is a Canadian pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D scientist and executive, with 35 years of experience in North America in drug discovery and development focusing mostly on antivirals. Mike has published broadly in his fields of interest authoring or co-authoring more than 70 peer reviewed publications. He also authored the book Viruses: Agents of Evolutionary Invention, published by Harvard University press in 2017.

He received a BA in Natural Sciences, from King’s College, Cambridge University and a PhD in Virology from Glasgow University. He then pursued research at the National Cancer Institute, NIH in the US studying the regulation of gene expression in oncogenic retroviruses and the influence of chromatin structure on gene expression. In 1988, Mike transitioned into pharmaceutical R&D joined Merck Research Labs prosecuting antiviral drug discovery projects on HIV (including tat, RT, Protease and Integrase inhibitors), human rhinovirus and HBV. He was responsible for initiating Merck’s HIV integrase program that would ultimately lead to the registration of raltegravir, the first approved HIV integrase inhibitor. Mike joined Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, Princeton in 1991 with oversight of herpesvirus antiviral programs focusing on HSV and CMV polymerase and protease targets.

In 1993 Mike assumed scientific leadership and executive positions at Boehringer Ingelheim’s research center in Montreal, Canada and in 2003 was appointed SVP and Research Site Head with responsibility for the Preclinical Therapeutic Area, Virology reporting to the Global Head, Corporate Research Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany. During his tenure the Canadian BI Research centre advanced a portfolio of HIV and HCV antiviral drugs into development and the clinic. Notably the centre was responsible for establishing the first clinical POC with an HCV protease inhibitor and supporting the registration of the HIV protease inhibitor Tipranavir.

In 2014 Mike took on multiple roles consulting in the biotechnology and venture capital sector in preclinical R&D and in 2019 he joined Transposon Therapeutics, participating initially in successfully securing a series A financing, at which point he took the position of Chief Scientific Officer responsible for preclinical R&D.