About DrugAbility
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Smarter Drug Target Strategy &
De-Risking Therapeutic Development
Expert Consulting for AI-Driven Drug Discovery Companies
At DrugAbility, we help AI-driven drug discovery companies make strategic decisions about drug target selection—minimizing risk, optimizing pipelines, and maximizing success.
Who We Help
We specialize in guiding AI-for-drug-discovery companies working in:
● Biophysics-Based Structure Prediction & Protein Dynamics
● AI-Driven Drug Target Portfolio Strategy
● Novel Drug Target Evaluation
Poor drug target selection is one of the biggest reasons drugs fail in clinical trials. We help companies avoid costly failures—saving millions in R&D and years of effort by predicting toxicity, identifying strategic therapeutic opportunities, and ensuring a strong competitive edge.
Why Work With Us?
● We De-Risk Drug Discovery
We’ve accurately predicted toxicity risks in clinical trials before they even began—helping our clients avoid high-profile failures, wasted resources, and scientific dead ends.
● Strategic Competitive Advantage
We shape your drug target portfolio around your company’s unique AI and technology strengths—maximizing differentiation and funding opportunities.
● Fail Fast, Fail Cheap—Or Succeed Strong
We help you rigorously assess targets before investing millions—ensuring your pipeline is built on scientifically sound, de-risked opportunities.
About DrugAbility
Founded in 2020, DrugAbility bridges biophysics, pharmacology, and AI to guide drug discovery companies in selecting the right targets—strategically and efficiently.
Expertise in:
● Drug Target Evaluation & Mechanistic Pharmacology
● Computational Pharmacology & AI-Powered Drug Discovery
● Toxicity Prediction & Drug Safety Strategies
Our clients include top AI-for-drug-discovery companies, from startups to established biotech firms, who trust us to help them avoid pitfalls, maximize their tech’s potential, and gain an edge in an ultra-competitive field.
About Dr. Veena Thomas
Founder & Lead Consultant, DrugAbility
Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Sciences & Pharmacogenomics, UCSF - Dr. Brian Shoichet’s lab
Postdoctoral Fellow, Computational Pharmacology, Stanford University - Dr. Vijay Pande’s lab
B.S., Biology, MIT - Dr. Vernon Ingram’s lab
Former Director of Therapeutic Strategy at Redesign Science
Dr. Veena Thomas is a computational pharmacologist, mechanistic pharmacologist, atomistic pharmacologist, and drug target biologist with deep expertise in both computational and experimental science. She earned her Ph.D. in Dr. Brian Shoichet’s lab at UCSF, completed her postdoctoral research in Dr. Vijay Pande’s lab at Stanford, and conducted undergraduate research in Dr. Vernon Ingram’s lab at MIT.
At Stanford, she developed a hybrid ligand- and structure-based computational pharmacology protocol for drug discovery and repurposing, and uncovered the mechanism of a fatal drug side effect. As a former x-ray crystallographer, structural biologist, enzymologist, and protein thermodynamicist, her Ph.D. research focused on protein stability, conformational dynamics, and drug resistance mutations.
As Director of Therapeutic Strategy at Redesign Science—a structure-prediction company leveraging molecular dynamics to explore protein dynamics, conformational change, and cryptic binding sites—Dr. Thomas built and led the company’s internal drug target portfolio strategy. She also developed a strategic evaluation framework for partnership and collaboration opportunities, and guided scientific direction at the intersection of AI, biophysics, and therapeutic relevance.
Dr. Thomas has also appeared in media interviews on NBC Bay Area and ABC7, following a high-profile vaccination clinic error in which she was injected with the wrong COVID vaccine dose. Drawing from her lifelong commitment to improving drug safety, she used the opportunity to advocate for better clinical protocols—leading to sweeping changes in vaccination procedures at El Camino Health. Her NBC Bay Area interview received over 700,000 views in three days and helped catalyze improved safeguards at the institutional level.
Since she has devoted her life and career to improving drug safety and drug discovery, she decided to turn an unfortunate incident into good — and she reached out to ABC7 and NBC Bay Area to push for changes in vaccination protocols to improve drug safety for everyone.
Dr. Thomas’s NBC Bay Area TV piece went viral, getting over 700,000 views in just 3 days - and her outspoken drug safety activism resulted in El Camino Health completely redoing their vaccination clinic protocols to prevent such a medical error from ever happening there again.
CLIENTS
&
What clients are saying
ANAGENEX:
“Veena has been an invaluable help to Anagenex as we sort out which targets to consider. She takes an unbiased approach to each project, re-examining the rationale behind conventional wisdom both about things that “should” work and things that “cannot” work. Her advice has helped us set up a rigorous, scientifically sound, clinically innovative slate of targets that will propel our company forward.”
-Dr. Nicolas Tilmans, CEO / Founder, Anagenex
“Veena has been an invaluable asset to our company as we define our early drug discovery portfolio and strategy. Her ability to research and propose targets is deep and insightful. She has a great knack for digging deep into a target’s background and finding the key details about where others have failed and is able to propose a path forward for Anagenex to have success.
She is also great at advising what targets we should not pursue and providing the scientific reasons for this. She really understands our company’s strengths and what is special about how we approach new medicine discovery. I have enjoyed working with her very much!”
-G. Joseph Franklin, Senior Vice President and Head of Early Discovery, Anagenex
“Working with Veena was a distinct pleasure. She is very personable, professional, and has a keen mind for pairing business goals with relevant science targets. I was impressed with the depth of Veena’s work in order to make sure each target would (a) be of interest to our company (b) fill a specific niche of our portfolio and (c) had biological precedence of being a viable option. Scientifically, Veena takes care to fully understand the implications of targeting any aspect of a pathway and works to establish the best protein targets.
Not only does Veena display a depth of knowledge around biochemical and biophysical assays; but she draws in cell-based work to fully pull together a story. Personally, Veena is very easy to talk to and she takes the time during each meeting to fully hear and process a question as well as promote discussion across the team.”
-Dr. Meghan Lawler, Director of Affinity Technology, Anagenex
“Veena has helped our company to build a drug target portfolio. She demonstrated herself as an expert in drug target biology and applied rigorous study for target evaluation before adding it into the portfolio. She helped our company to build a strategically positioned portfolio of therapeutically relevant targets with high business potential. It was interesting and easy to work with Veena and I recommend using her as a consultant.”
-Dr. Svetlana Belyanskaya, VP of Biology, Anagenex
“Dr. Thomas's expertise was invaluable as we built out our initial target selection strategy. She was thorough and insightful in her review of the vast literature confronting us, and helped us narrow down the space of possibilities into specific, actionable directions. Her work had a direct impact on our overall strategic roadmap, and helped us avoid many potential pitfalls in selecting which diseases to pursue.”
-Dr. Raphael Townshend, CEO / Founder, Atomic AI
“It was a real pleasure to collaborate with Veena. With her attention to detail, she brought an incredible wealth of knowledge to our work. She is able to go very broad and very deep -- a rare combination of skills that is perfect for surveying the landscape and assembling a drug target portfolio.“
-Dr. Adrian Sanborn, Head of Biosciences, Atomic AI
“Veena's superpower is her ability to quickly survey a field and present the most salient details of a disease or target class, matched with her expertise on the realities of target selection and drug development. This made working with Veena both effortless and incredibly productive for our early explorations. As we move forward, the wealth of insights she gave us continues to contribute to our strategy.”
-Dr. Meredith Corley, Senior Scientist,
Atomic AI
Strategic BUSINESS marketing consulting clients
“Veena is a brilliant and insightful person filled with practical and effective strategic business ideas. She used her well rounded experience and great listening skills to formulate a specific game plan that helped me propel my business to a new level. I highly recommend using Veena as a consultant.”
-Mark Cernan, Realtor, Compass Real Estate; Menlo Park, CA
"Veena has given me invaluable tools to help position my company for success. Her ability to recognize my superpowers and adapt those strengths into an effective marketing strategy is a true testament to her creative business understanding. Collaborating together we have been able to reactivate many of my past patients, grow my private pay practice and position Strive Physical Therapy for sustained growth during a pandemic and beyond. Truly amazing!"
-Rob Abrams, CEO, Strive Physical Therapy, Inc.; Los Altos, CA
Please reach out using the “Contact Us” button below with questions and for more information, find DrugAbility on LinkedIn, or reach out to Veena on LinkedIn (preferred).
