Halo Therapeutics

We Develop Pan Coronavirus Antivirals

There is no home therapeutic treatment for COVID-19 patients, and similarly no prophylactic treatment for at risk patients (elderly, disease preconditions, track and trace “proximity positive” individuals, family members of positive cases).
Our vision is to solve this urgent unmet medical need by providing safe pan coronavirus antivirals which can be applied by COVID-19 patients by themselves, at home

HALO'S PROPRIETARY FREE FATTY ACID FORMULA IS A PAN CORONAVIRUS ANTIVIRAL

We recently published in Science Magazine the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is driven to non-infectious, locked conformation by nanomolar concentrations of free fatty acid.

The pocket and antiviral mechanism we discovered are fully conserved in:

  • SARS1 (2003), MERS (2012) and SARS-CoV-2 (2019)
  • all Variants of Concern (VOC) alpha, beta, delta, omicron

OUR PIPELINE & SCIENCE

Led by scientists with an elite level track record in drug discovery, we are advancing a pipeline of novel and proprietary pan coronavirus antiviral therapeutics by applying our expertise in structural biology, virology, and computational chemistry.

Pipeline Development Programs

Halo Antiviral Pipeline: Overview & Current Focus

INVESTMENT, LICENSING, AND PARTNERING

Please contact us for partnering, licensing, or investment opportunities in pan coronavirus antivirals and potential antiviral drugs for Covid-19.

Our Company

Halo Therapeutics develops pan-coronavirus antivirals. Founded in December 2020 and based in Bristol, UK, our vision is to roll out a class of small molecule pan-coronavirus therapeutics targeting the central axis of disease pathology: lipid regulation.

Halo Executive Team

Dr Dan Fitzgerald CEO

Dr Dan Fitzgerald CEO

  • Biotech Entrepreneur
  • Company Building
  • IP, Deal making, licencing
Prof Imre Berger CSO

Prof Imre Berger CSO

  • Director Max Planck Bristol
  • Wellcome Trust Investigator
  • ERC Investigator
  • FMedSci
  • Serial Entrepreneur
Prof Christiane Schaffitzel CTO

Prof Christiane Schaffitzel CTO

  • Wellcome Trust Investigator
  • Discovered the Pocket
  • Cryo-EM Specialist
Dr Peter Pack NED

Dr Peter Pack NED

  • Serial Biotech CEO
  • Former Venture Capitalist
  • 29 years company building
  • Ex CEO Crescendo, Cambridge UK
  • Advises investors and biotechs
Dr. Daniel Fitzgerald

Dr. Daniel Fitzgerald

Co-Founder and CEO
  • Biotechnologist and Entrepreneur
  • Cofounded 3 startups
  • Dealmaking, company building, in/out licensing, IP
Prof. Christiane Schaffitzel

Prof. Christiane Schaffitzel

Co-Founder and CTO
  • Discovered Linoleic Acid Binding
  • Professor of Biochemistry
  • Cryo-EM Specialist
Charles Grimsdale

Charles Grimsdale

Non-Executive Director
  • Serial Entrepreneur
  • Super-Angel Investor
  • Startup Building
Prof. Imre Berger

Prof. Imre Berger

Co-Founder and CSO
  • Director, Max Planck Bristol Centre
  • Director, Bristol Synthetic Biology Centre
  • Wellcome Trust Investigator, ERC Investigator
  • Discovered Linoleic Acid COVID-19 interaction
Prof. Chris Jones

Prof. Chris Jones

Non-Executive Director
  • Former Global Head Astra Pharmaceutical Development
  • Led numerous drugs from bench to bedside
  • Developed Symbicort and Pulmicort in respiratory
Prof. Adam Finn MD PhD

Prof. Adam Finn MD PhD

  • Head clinician UK COVID-19 RECOVERY trial
  • Designing our Clinical Trials
  • Expert in viral transmission
  • COVID Key Opinion Leader
Dr. Catherine Hyams MBBS PhD

Dr. Catherine Hyams MBBS PhD

  • Respiratory clinical specialist
  • Extensive experience managing complex respiratory infection conditions.
Tony Fox MD PhD CMO

Tony Fox MD PhD CMO

  • Pharmaceutical physician 30+ years experience.
  • Former Glaxo Inc and President of EBD Group.
Prof. Adam Finn

Prof. Adam Finn

MD PhD
  • Head clinician in UK wide RECOVERY trial ongoing for COVID-19
  • Designing our Clinical Trials
  • Expert in viral transmission New York Times Article by Adam
Dr. Catherine Hyams

Dr. Catherine Hyams

MBBS PhD
Respiratory clinical specialist with RECOVERY trial ongoing for COVID-19. Extensive experience managing complex respiratory infection conditions.
Dr. Tony Fox

Dr. Tony Fox

MD PhD

Dr. Fox is a pharmaceutical physician 30+ years experience. Former Glaxo Inc. and President of the entire EBD Group.

Tony is leading our regulatory affairs

Prof Chris Jones NED

Prof Chris Jones NED

  • Former AstraZeneca Global Head Pharma Dev
  • Developed Symbicort
  • 30+ years in big pharma
Dr. Ameet Ambarkhane, Director of Product Development

Dr. Ameet Ambarkhane, Director of Product Development

  • Multilingual in drug discovery, development and production
  • Ex Novartis, MSD
Prof. Imre Berger

Prof. Imre Berger

Co-Founder and CSO
  • Director, Max Planck Bristol Centre
  • Director, Bristol Synthetic Biology Centre
  • Wellcome Trust Investigator, ERC Investigator
  • Discovered Linoleic Acid COVID-19 interaction
Prof. Christiane Schaffitzel

Prof. Christiane Schaffitzel

Co-Founder and CTO
  • Discovered Linoleic Acid Binding
  • Professor of Biochemistry
  • Cryo-EM Specialist
Dr. Barrett Rabinow

Dr. Barrett Rabinow

PhD
Former Head Chemistry R&D at Baxter and Baxter Distinguished Scientist, 30+ years expertise in product formulation and delivery
Betty Mishkin

Betty Mishkin

Principal Medical Writer/Pharmaceutical Research Consultant Former Baxter lead on the NanoEdge™ Drug Delivery Tech Platform
Tom Pavlina

Tom Pavlina

MSc (MIT)
Former Baxter Research Scientist, 30+ years experience with lipid formulation and delivery, preclinical and clinical

NEWS

What is known about new Covid variant XBB.1.5?

What is known about new Covid variant XBB.1.5?

haloadmin
 On 6th January 2023

A new Covid sub-variant is causing some concern in the US, where it is spreading rapidly.

Some cases have also been recorded in the UK, so what do you need to know about XBB.1.5?

CDC reports a new strain of omicron taking over in the U.S.

CDC reports a new strain of omicron taking over in the U.S.

haloadmin
 On 2nd January 2023

About 40% of confirmed U.S. Covid cases are caused by the XBB.1.5 strain, up from 20% a week ago.

Research in action: Halo’s pan-coronavirus antivirals explained.

Research in action: Halo’s pan-coronavirus antivirals explained.

haloadmin
 On 14th December 2022

What was it like to keep research work going during the worst of the pandemic? And how close are we to a vaccine that works against all current and future coronavirus variants?

Conserved binding pocket is net positive for deadly coronavirus strains

Conserved binding pocket is net positive for deadly coronavirus strains

haloadmin
 On 5th December 2022

Investigators at the University of Bristol and Biognos AB have identified a structural feature that distinguished the deadly coronavirus strains from harmless, common cold-causing variants. The findings, which were published in the Nov. 23, 2022

PREV NEXT
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KEY PUBLICATIONS

The free fatty acid–binding pocket is a conserved hallmark in pathogenic β-coronavirus spike proteins from SARS-CoV to Omicron

Christine Toelzer, Kapil Gupta, Sathish K.N. Yadav, Lorna Hodgson, Maia Kavanagh Williamson, Dora Buzas, Ufuk Borucu, Kyle Powers, Richard Stenner, Kate Vasileiou, Frederic Garzoni, Daniel Fitzgerald, Christine Payré, Gérard Lambeau, Andrew D. Davidson, Paul Verkade, Martin Frank, Imre Berger, Christiane Schaffitzel

Pathogen-sugar interactions revealed by universal saturation transfer analysis

Charles J Buchanan, Ben Gaunt, Peter J Harrison, Yun Yang, Jiwei Liu, Aziz Khan, Andrew M Giltrap, Audrey Le Bas, Philip N Ward, Kapil Gupta, Maud Dumoux, Tiong Kit Tan, Lisa Schimaski, Sergio Daga, Nicola Picchiotti, Margherita Baldassarri, Elisa Benetti, Chiara Fallerini, Francesca Fava, Annarita Giliberti, Panagiotis I Koukos, Matthew J Davy, Abirami Lakshminarayanan, Xiaochao Xue, Georgios Papadakis, Lachlan P Deimel, Virgínia Casablancas-Antràs, Timothy D W Claridge, Alexandre M J J Bonvin, Quentin J Sattentau, Simone Furini, Marco Gori, Jiandong Huo, Raymond J Owens, Christiane Schaffitzel, Imre Berger, Alessandra Renieri, GEN-COVID Multicenter Study; James H Naismith, Andrew J Baldwin, Benjamin G Davis

Synthetic virions reveal fatty acid-coupled adaptive immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein

Oskar Staufer, Kapil Gupta, Jochen Estebano Hernandez Bücher, Fabian Kohler, Christian Sigl, Gunjita Singh, Kate Vasileiou, Ana Yagüe Relimpio, Meline Macher, Sebastian Fabritz, Hendrik Dietz, Elisabetta Ada Cavalcanti Adam, Christiane Schaffitzel, Alessia Ruggieri, Ilia Platzman, Imre Berger & Joachim P. Spatz

Structural insights in cell-type specific evolution of intra-host diversity by SARS-CoV-2

Kapil Gupta, Christine Toelzer, Maia Kavanagh Williamson, Deborah K. Shoemark, A. Sofia F. Oliveira, David A. Matthews, Abdulaziz Almuqrin, Oskar Staufer, Sathish K. N. Yadav, Ufuk Borucu, Frederic Garzoni, Daniel Fitzgerald, Joachim Spatz, Adrian J. Mulholland, Andrew D. Davidson, Christiane Schaffitzel & Imre Berger

The fatty acid site is coupled to functional motifs in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and modulates spike allosteric behaviour.

A Sofia F Oliveira A, Deborah K Shoemark, Amaurys Avila Ibarra, Andrew D Davidson, Imre Berger, Christiane Schaffitzel & Andrew J Mulholland

The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: balancing stability and infectivity

Imre Berger, Christiane Schaffitzel

Free fatty acid binding pocket in the locked structure of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

Christine Toelzer, Kapil Gupta, Sathish K. N. Yadav, Ufuk Borucu, Andrew D. Davidson, Maia Kavanagh Williamson, Deborah K. Shoemark, Frederic Garzoni, Oskar Staufer, Rachel Milligan, Julien Capin, Adrian J. Mulholland, Joachim Spatz, Daniel Fitzgerald, Imre Berger, Christiane Schaffitzel

Contact Us

For more information about Halo Therapeutics, please Contact Us and our pipeline development programs for pan coronavirus antiviral cure, get in touch with us.

Halo Therapeutics