Moving beyond a 45-year-old antiviral for herpes

After a decades-long lull in innovation, a wave of candidates is advancing through the HSV pipeline that could combat drug resistance, suppress viral reactivation or even clear the virus completely.

While the past decades have seen functional cures for HCV and powerful vaccines for other viruses, only three FDA-approved systemic antivirals have shown clinical benefit in randomized trials for HSV since the discovery of acyclovir in 1974...