Akari Therapeutics Appoints Mark F. Kubik as Head of Business Development – Oncology

Mark F. Kubik

BOSTON and LONDON, May 01, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Akari Therapeutics, Plc (Nasdaq: AKTX), an oncology biotechnology company developing novel payload antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), today announced the appointment of Mark F. Kubik as Head of Business Development – Oncology.

Mr. Kubik is a well-established industry leader whose oncology expertise and transactions record has led to multiple approved therapeutic products and advanced clinical product candidates. Across his 25+ years career, Mr. Kubik has established a successful track record of transformative deal creation and productive alliances including ADCs, empowered antibody therapies, and biologics for companies such as SeaGen (now Pfizer), Abgenix (now Amgen), MacroGenics, and OncoImmune among others.

“We are incredibly pleased to welcome Mark to our team to lead the Company’s business development activities for our novel ADC platform and lead asset AKTX-101, including collaboration and partnership activities. We believe the insight and expertise he brings will be invaluable as we continue to advance our innovative novel ADC platform technology and position Akari as a key player in the ADC space,” commented Abizer Gaslightwala, President and Chief Executive Officer of Akari.

Mr. Kubik added, “Over the past few years there has been significant Big Pharma interest and deal flow in the early-stage ADC space. While there is a lot of traction in this area of development, new, unique payloads with novel mechanisms that can advance the therapeutic potential of current ADCs are needed. I believe Akari’s first novel payload, a spliceosome inhibitor, creates the potential for Akari’s lead asset AKTX-101 (Trop2 targeted) to be a first-in-class immuno-oncology ADC therapy for patients across multiple solid tumors. I look forward to working with the Akari team to advance AKTX-101 and leverage its innovative ADC payload discovery platform for other targets leveraging its novel payload library.”

Mr. Kubik joins Akari from having most recently served as Senior Vice President, U.S and EU Business Development at I-MAB Biopharma where he was responsible for business development, alliance management and product / portfolio planning directed toward the US and EU business and operating spheres. Prior to that, he held leadership positions at Genor Biopharma and Actinium Pharmaceuticals, respectively, as Chief Business Officer. Prior to his role at Actinium, Mr. Kubik served as CBO at OncoImmune, where he headed its business development function and led a process and transaction whereby the company was sold to Merck for $425M upfront with potential additional contingent regulatory and sales milestones and royalties. Prior to OncoImmune, he held positions in business development and led transformative and award-winning deal making including an ex-US strategic alliance on behalf of SeaGen (now Pfizer) with Takeda for Adcetris^® (brentuximab vedotin) (nominated by Recombinant Capital / Allicense for consideration as 2009 “Alliance of the Year”) and a multi-program bispecific mAb discovery collaboration on behalf of MacroGenics with Gilead (won Licensing Executives Society (LES) Alliance of the Year in Life Sciences Award in 2013), and a global co-development agreement on behalf of Abgenix (now Amgen) with Immunex for Vectibix^® (panitumumab). Mr. Kubik also held roles at Protein Design Labs (PDL), XOMA, AvantGen, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, i2 Pharmaceuticals / Velocity Sciences, and Invenra, among others.

Mr. Kubik received his MBA in Finance from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder and his BA (cum laude) in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) from CU-Boulder.

About Akari Therapeutics

Akari Therapeutics is an oncology biotechnology company developing next-generation spliceosome payload antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). Utilizing its innovative ADC discovery platform, the Company has the ability to generate ADC candidates and optimize them based on the desired application to any target of interest. Akari’s lead candidate, AKTX-101, targets the Trop2 receptor on cancer cells and with a proprietary linker, delivers its novel PH1 payload directly into the tumor. Unlike current ADCs that use tubulin inhibitors and DNA damaging agents as their payloads, PH1 is a novel payload that is a spliceosome inhibitor designed to disrupt RNA splicing within cancer cells. This splicing inhibition has been shown in preclinical animal models to induce cancer cell death while activating immune cells to drive robust and durable activity. In preclinical studies, AKTX-101 has shown to have significant activity and prolonged survival, relative to ADCs with traditional payloads. Additionally, AKTX-101 has the potential to be synergistic with checkpoint inhibitors and has demonstrated prolonged survival as both a single agent and in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, as compared to appropriate controls. The Company is generating validating data on its novel payload PH1 to continue advancing its lead asset, as well as other undisclosed targets with this novel payload.

For more information about the Company, please visit www.akaritx.com and connect on X and LinkedIn.