Innovative Molecules GmbH of Germany has raised €20 million from a Series A financing round to progress a treatment for herpes simplex virus, a microbe that jumped from chimpanzees to humans more than 1.6 million years ago and now infects around two-thirds of the global population. There are two forms of the virus, type 1 and type 2, which can present either as cold sores on the mouth or blisters on the genitals. Once infected, an individual has the virus for life, though in many people it remains latent.
