Abizer Gaslightwala serves as President and CEO of Akari Therapeutics since April 21, 2025 and as Director since December 2024. He is a well-established leader in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. He has a successful track record spanning over 25 years in the development and commercialization of novel medicines across a range of companies and therapeutic areas, and in particular the Oncology therapeutic area over the last 10 years.

Mr. Gaslightwala most recently served as the Senior Vice President and Franchise Head for Oncology at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, where he managed a portfolio of products spanning both solid tumors and hematological malignancies generating up to $1B in annual sales.

We are laser-focused on developing oncology therapies with this newly acquired ADC platform, which at its core, is based on a novel payload that activates a patient’s immune system to kill cancer.

Mr. Gaslightwala has also been in several leadership roles at Amgen, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, where he has led development, launch, and growth of several products within Oncology and other therapeutics areas. His experiences at these leading companies spanned business unit leadership, brand marketing, sales leadership, commercial pipeline planning, advanced analytics and insights, and business development. Prior to these roles, Mr. Gaslightwala advised several life science companies through his time at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Mr. Gaslightwala holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University, and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management, and a MS in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

You recently stepped into the role of CEO at Akari Therapeutics. What drew you to this opportunity, and what excites you most about leading the company at this stage?

Akari has redefined itself as an oncology company after the Peak Bio merger in late 2024 and is now focused on advancing the development of Antibody Drug Conjugates, or ADCs, which are the hottest therapy class in oncology today. Joining a company that is developing these unique therapies, and in ways that could transform the whole class of ADC therapies using the novel technology that Akari acquired through Peak Bio is incredibly exciting for me. This was a unique opportunity to build a new company and paradigm for ADC therapies that have the potential to make a major impact and advance cancer treatment outcomes for patients.

For those less familiar with Akari, can you give us a snapshot of the company today and its focus within the Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) space?

We are laser-focused on developing oncology therapies with this newly acquired ADC platform, which at its core, is based on a novel payload that activates a patient’s immune system to kill cancer. Currently, we have 1 lead ADC molecule with this novel payload that is very far advanced in preclinical testing, and we are working on progressing a second, very novel ADC with this payload quickly to get to the same stage of preclinical development. We believe our novel payload platform will enable us to develop additional ADC molecules moving forward as we start to scale-up the R&D team up to full speed.

Akari has placed a strong focus on developing novel payloads for ADCs. What’s the rationale behind this strategy, and what excites you most about your first novel payload targeting RNA splicing?

Current ADC therapies are using 2 major classes of payloads to attack cancer. Although these have shown efficacy in many cancer patients, the effects of these existing payloads on cancer tumors seem to stop over time due to resistance mechanisms that the cancer tumor develops. In addition, current ADCs with either of these 2 payloads have side effects and toxicities that make it difficult for patients to tolerate and take them over longer periods of time. What’s exciting about Akari’s payload targeting RNA splicing is that it has the potential to not only kill cancer cells, but more importantly, robustly activate the immune system in key ways that fight the cancer throughout the body. This makes it very difficult for the cancer to become resistant to the reactivated immune system and provides the potential for our ADCs to have a much longer and more durable treatment effect against the cancer. It’s exciting to push the envelope with this new science using our novel payloads as part of next generation ADCs!

Oncology therapeutics remain a hot area, and ADCs have become a key focus within that space. How is Akari positioning its approach and platform to stand out and compete in this rapidly evolving landscape?

We are aiming to be the new payload standard for ADCs in the future. As described earlier, Akari’s payload stands out from current ADCs and payloads, namely the immuno-oncology properties, or the ability to robustly activate the immune system. As Akari continues to validate our novel payload to show that inhibiting RNA splicing is a better way to build ADC therapies, we believe we have the potential to be the payload of choice for all ADC’s moving forward. It’s like being the new operating system for all phones or computers, where the applicability could be very broad.

As we look ahead to the next 12 months, what should investors be watching for in terms of data, pipeline progress or corporate growth at Akari?

We are working intensely to build a growing body of data demonstrating the specific immune effects and changes caused by our RNA splicing inhibiting payload, so stay tuned for more data on that later in 2025. In addition, we are working to build that next novel ADC molecule, which targets a unique cancer target in several solid cancer tumors differently than others, and is combined with our unique spliceosome inhibitor payload. As we advance the development of this molecule forward, we believe we have a chance to be both “First-in-Class” and “Best-in-Class” with this new molecule. We at Akari are excited and passionate about the current work everyday and the what the future holds with our novel ADC technology!

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