Ventus Therapeutics Named to C&E News 10 Start-Ups to Watch 2020 List

WALTHAM, Mass. & MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Ventus Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company with proprietary technologies for structure-enabled small-molecule drug discovery that is developing medicines targeting the innate immune system, announced today that it has been selected as one of 10 Start-Ups to Watch by Chemical & Engineering News.

Chemical & Engineering News (C&E News), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society (ACS), selects its annual list of 10 chemistry start-ups to watch from among hundreds of nominations submitted from readers around the world and those compiled by the magazine’s writers and editors, who scoured the chemical, biotech and materials world for young companies with great promise. Ventus was selected by C&E News based on the company’s proprietary Structural Immunology platform, which enables the pursuit of previously intractable drug targets for autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer.

“Diseases mediated by dysfunction of innate immunity cause an extraordinary burden to patients and their families, but most drug targets of interest in this field have been elusive for discovering new medicines. We are honored to be recognized as one of the 10 Start-Ups to Watch by C&E News and to have our Structural Immunology platform highlighted as a groundbreaking approach to unravel the potential of many innate immunity targets,” said Marcelo Bigal, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of Ventus. “This defines our mission at Ventus, as we work to apply our platform to pioneer new ways to develop transformative medicines for patients.”

Using its Structural Immunology platform, Ventus scientists apply disruptive technologies to generate and express stable monomers of therapeutic targets of interest, and to elucidate their protein structures. The company’s advanced proprietary computational chemistry tools and structure-based modeling allow rational design of medicines for therapeutic targets in the inflammasome and nucleic acid sensing signaling pathways. The company is currently developing drugs for three targets, including NLRP3, a well-established but difficult-to-target driver of many chronic inflammatory and immune-related diseases. Ventus is also pursuing a broad pipeline of additional targets, as its platform capabilities open opportunities across a wide range of therapeutic applications.

About C&E News

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. The Society is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a specialist in scientific information solutions (including SciFinder^® and STN^®), its CAS division powers global research, discovery and innovation. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

About Ventus Therapeutics

Ventus Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel small molecule medicines that target the innate immune system to treat autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer. Our Structural Immunology platform offers unprecedented insight into mechanisms and molecular structures, combining core capabilities for precisely targeting the innate immune system: proprietary protein engineering capabilities that elucidate innate immune mechanisms, and leading-edge rational and structure-based drug design tools. Ventus has built an emerging pipeline of multiple drug programs addressing key targets in the innate immune system. Our team combines experienced biopharmaceutical leadership with a founding team of leading scientists whose discoveries have opened a new understanding of innate immune system mechanisms. Ventus is backed by Versant Ventures, its founding investor, and GV (formerly Google Ventures). The company has locations in Boston, Massachusetts and Montreal, Canada. For more information, please visit www.ventustx.com and engage with us on Twitter @Ventus_Tx or on LinkedIn.

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