New directors possess diverse sets of experiences across drug development and corporate finance
WALTHAM, MA & MONTREAL, QC, December 7, 2021 – Ventus Therapeutics U.S., Inc., a biopharmaceutical company utilizing structural biology and cutting-edge computational tools to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics across a broad range of disease indications, today announced the appointments of Jane Henderson, Dolca Thomas, M.D. and Markus Warmuth, M.D. to the company’s Board of Directors.
“We believe the wealth of biopharmaceutical leadership and business expertise that Jane, Dolca and Markus bring to our Board of Directors will be instrumental as we continue to advance our pipeline and execute on our development strategy,” said Marcelo Bigal, MD, PhD, president and CEO of Ventus. “Jane is a veteran biopharmaceutical executive, a multiple-time CFO with significant expertise in corporate strategy and corporate finance. Dolca is a well-respected R&D leader and a multiple-time CMO with experience across a broad range of translational medicine, clinical development and medical affairs that drives innovative drug development. Markus brings extensive experience as a CEO and senior executive who has played a critical role in the building of emerging biotech companies and high-growth divisions of pharmaceutical companies. We welcome these three outstanding leaders to our team and look forward to their guidance as we work to build a leading-edge company.”
Jane Pritchett Henderson has served as Adagio Therapeutics’ Chief Financial Officer since December 2020. Ms. Henderson has a combination of corporate, board and investment banking experience growing public and private biopharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining Adagio Therapeutics, Ms. Henderson has held executive level roles in finance and corporate development at numerous biotechnology companies, including Turnstone Biologics, Voyager Therapeutics, Kolltan Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celldex) and ISTA Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Bausch + Lomb). In addition to her industry experience, Ms. Henderson’s extensive healthcare investment banking experience includes the execution of more than 95 mergers and acquisitions, and advisory and financing deals as managing director and other senior roles at HSBC Holdings plc, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers. Ms. Henderson holds a B.S. in psychology from Duke University and currently serves on the board of directors of several companies including Akero Therapeutics, Inc. since April 2019, of IVERIC bio, Inc. since January 2018 and of Sesen Bio, Inc., formerly Eleven Biotherapeutics, Inc., since October 2013.
Dolca Thomas, M.D., is the Executive Vice President of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Equillium and an independent director at Chinook Therapeutics. She served as Principia’s Chief Medical Officer from 2018 until the Sanofi acquisition in September 2020. Prior to Principia, Dr. Thomas was Vice President and Global Head of Translational Medicine for Immunology, Inflammation, and Infectious Disease at Roche; Vice President of Clinical Development and Clinical Immunophenotyping at Pfizer and Vice President and Chief Development Officer of the Biosimilars Research and Development Unit at Pfizer. Dr. Thomas began her industry career at Bristol-Myers Squibb as Director of Global Clinical Development, where she was involved in late stage clinical drug development including the approval of the immunomodulatory drug, belatacept. Dr. Thomas received a B.A. in sociology from Cornell University and an M.D. from Cornell Medical College.
Markus Warmuth, M.D., is the President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors at Monte Rosa Therapeutics. He joined Monte Rosa Therapeutics from Third Rock Ventures, where he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and played an integral role in the venture capital firm’s formation of new biotech companies. Prior to his role at Third Rock Ventures, Dr. Warmuth spent seven years as the Chief Executive Officer of H3 Biomedicine, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in the discovery and development of genomics-based precision oncology treatments. He has also previously served in multiple roles at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, including as the Director of Kinase Biology, Head of Oncology Pharmacology. While at Novartis, he and his teams were involved in the development of ceritinib and ribociclib as well as the discovery of allosteric inhibitors of SHP2 and Abl, amongst others. He also currently serves as a Venture Partner at Versant Ventures. He earned his M.D. from Ludwig Maximilian University, in Munich, Germany.
About Ventus Therapeutics
Ventus Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company utilizing structural biology and cutting-edge computational tools to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics across a broad range of disease indications, with an initial focus on immunology, inflammation and neurology. We have developed a proprietary drug discovery platform, called ReSOLVE, which is built upon our structural biology and protein science expertise and our proprietary computational chemistry capabilities, to address the current limitations of small molecule drug discovery. We are leveraging our ReSOLVE platform to discover and characterize previously unknown or poorly understood pockets on the surface of proteins and identify small molecules that can bind to those pockets with optimal affinity. We are focused on high-value targets that have been extensively implicated in human diseases that were previously considered undruggable or where we believe there is a significant opportunity to improve upon existing therapies. Our lead programs target key innate immune modulators, including NLRP3 and cGAS. For more information, please visit www.ventustx.com and engage with us on Twitter @Ventus_Tx or on LinkedIn.
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