Board consists of world-renowned computer-driven drug discovery experts to support Ventus’ physics-based and AI/ML-enabled ReSOLVE® platform
WALTHAM, Mass. & MONTREAL — December 16, 2025 — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Ventus Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company advancing multiple small-molecule programs for immunological, inflammatory, and neurological disorders, today announced the appointment of Georgia McGaughey, Ph.D., as the chair of its newly formed ReSOLVE® Scientific Advisory Board. In addition to Dr. McGaughey, other world-leading experts in computer-aided drug design (CADD), including Christopher Bayly, Ph.D., and Tom Kurtzman, Ph.D., serve on the board. The Scientific Advisory Board supports the advancement of Ventus’ proprietary drug discovery platform, ReSOLVE®,which combines the latest advances in AI-enabled, physics-based small molecule drug discovery to tackle difficult-to-drug targets at a fraction of the time and costs of traditional approaches.
“We are thrilled to have Georgia join our ReSOLVE® Scientific Advisory Board. Together with Christopher and Tom, the group brings decades of experience in developing and applying leading-edge computational chemistry and solvation structure analysis to drug discovery,” said Michael Crackower, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Ventus Therapeutics. “Building upon the momentum of our recently announced collaboration with Genentech, we look forward to working closely with this group as we evolve our platformand make progress toward meaningful advances for patients.”
Dr. Georgia McGaughey brings more than three decades of experience in computational sciences, research strategy, and digital transformation for drug discovery. She currently advises companies on accelerating innovation through Trilligant, a consultancy she founded in 2024. Prior to this, Dr. McGaughey spent nearly 12 years at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, most recently as Vice President of the Global Data and Computational Science group and as a member of the Research Leadership Team responsible for scientific strategy and direction across the company’s portfolio. Before Vertex, she spent 13 years at Merck in roles spanning multiple therapeutic areas, including infectious diseases and neurosciences. Her work has contributed to the invention and advancement of several drug candidates and has resulted in more than 100 publications and presentations. Dr. McGaughey earned a B.S. in chemistry from Kennesaw State University and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Georgia, followed by postdoctoral research in electronic structure theory at Colorado State University. She is also a graduate of multiple executive leadership programs at Harvard Business School.
“Ventus is taking a bold and innovative approach to drug discovery, leveraging the power of structural biology and computation to address previously intractable targets,” said Georgia McGaughey, Ph.D., Chair of the ReSOLVE® Scientific Advisory Board. “I’m excited to work with the Ventus team to further refine and apply the ReSOLVE® platform, helping to unlock new possibilities for designing small molecules with unprecedented precision and impact.”
Christopher Bayly, Ph.D.
Dr. Bayly brings more than 30 years of experience in the use of computational chemistry methods to solve practical pharmaceutical discovery problems, encompassing a unique combination of expertise in methods development and the application to drug discovery. While at OpenEye Cadence Molecular Sciences, Dr. Bayly led the introduction and development of Binding Free Energy methods, and he is also a co-founder and advisor to the Open Force Field Initiative, a broad-based collaboration to develop next-generation small molecule and biomolecular force fields. Prior to his time at OpenEye, Dr. Bayly founded and led the computational chemistry group at Merck Frosst for 18 years. Dr. Bayly earned a B.Sc. in biochemistry from Bishop’s University, an M.Sc. in synthetic bioorganic chemistry from L’Université de Sherbrooke, and a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from the University of New Brunswick, followed by a postdoctoral term with Peter Kollman at the University of California, San Francisco.
Tom Kurtzman, Ph.D.
Dr. Kurtzman is a pioneer in the exploration and determination of the structure of water in biological systems, having developed one of the earliest tools for modeling water in a binding pocket. He is a professor at Lehman College, City University of New York, where his research focuses on the development of computational methods that aid in the discovery and rational design of new drugs. Dr. Kurtzman’s honors and awards include the OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award from the Computational Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society. Dr. Kurtzman earned a B.A. in chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University, and pursued postdoctoral research at Columbia University.
About ReSOLVE®
Ventus’ proprietary ReSOLVE® platform combines the latest advances in artificial intelligence/machine learning, protein science, structural biology, and biophysics to substantially increase the speed and accuracy of small-molecule drug discovery. ReSOLVE® is the only platform that can model all conformations of a protein, identify druggable pockets, characterize the dynamic water networks of a pocket, and use those water networks to generate a blueprint for small molecule binders, referred to as a hydrocophore®. The hydrocophore® enables rapid virtual screening of libraries containing billions of compounds, efficiently identifying potent and structurally unique chemical matter. ReSOLVE® is both target agnostic and therapeutic area agnostic and can be applied to multiple stages of drug discovery, from target assessment to development candidate nomination.
About Ventus Therapeutics
Ventus Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company advancing multiple small-molecule programs for immunological, inflammatory, and neurological disorders. Using its proprietary drug discovery platform, ReSOLVE®, the company has established a robust pipeline of wholly-owned programs: VENT-03, a first-in-class, oral cGAS inhibitor in Phase 2 for lupus with significant expansion opportunities in additional I&I diseases, cardiometabolic conditions, and inflammaging; VENT-02, a best-in-class, brain-penetrant, oral NLRP3 inhibitor in Phase 2 for Parkinson’s disease; and VENT-04, a first-in-class caspase-4/5 inhibitor in preclinical development. In addition, Ventus has out-licensed VENT-01, a peripherally-restricted, oral NLRP3 inhibitor in Phase 1, to Novo Nordisk A/S. For more information, please visit www.ventustx.com and engage with Ventus on LinkedIn.
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