Abizer Gaslightwala, Director, President and CEO
Mr. 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.
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.
Kameel D. Farag, Interim Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Farag joined Akari in November of 2025 after having most recently served as Chief Financial Officer and head of business operations at Aspen Neuroscience, where he oversaw tripling the company’s headcount, secured over $150 million in financing, built manufacturing infrastructure, and prepared the company for clinical data and a potential future public offering. Prior to his time at Aspen, Mr. Farag served as SVP Finance at Ionis Pharmaceuticals. As a member of the senior leadership team, he was instrumental in supporting the company’s revenue and profitability growth by building out the finance team, systems and processes to support $1B+ in revenue, multiple marketed products, and a growing wholly-owned pipeline. Earlier in his career, Mr. Farag was with Amgen for more than 16 years, where he held positions of increased leadership, including heading finance for international regions where he focused on driving growth in emerging markets while growing profitability in established markets.
Mr. Farag earned his bachelor’s degree in Business & Economics at University of California, Santa Barbara.
Satyajit Mitra Ph.D., Executive Director, Head of Oncology
Dr. Mitra was appointed as Executive Director, Head of Oncology, in November 2022. As the Head of Oncology, Dr. Mitra has been responsible for our preclinical research activities at our California research sites since January 2021. Dr. Mitra heads up a team of consultants, CROs and CDMOs and has been instrumental in advancing our novel toxin platform and ADC pipeline.
Dr. Mitra joined the Company in March 2019 as Associate Director, Cancer Biology and was responsible for in vivo and pharmacology functions that led to the nomination of the current Peak Bio lead toxin (PH1), which then led to Peak Bio’s initial proof-of-concept (POC) efforts for an ADC. These POC efforts led to the nomination of Peak Bio’s first ADC pipeline candidate targeting Trop2. He previously served as a Senior Scientist, at VasGene Therapeutics, and was involved with IND-enabling studies for novel antibody targets. Dr. Mitra’s initial corporate scientific experience was at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals for five years where he worked on Target Validation. He was instrumental in identifying the first-in-class Wnt-pathway biologics, advancing these projects from early stage to an IND.
In addition to Dr. Mitra’s oncology company experiences, he also previously worked as a research scientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Immunology at Scripps Research Institute at La Jolla, California. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology at Hyderabad, India an institute affiliated with the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India.
Vatnak Vat-Ho, Chief Business Officer
Mr. Vat-Ho brings more than 20 years of experience spanning oncology business development, biopharmaceutical strategy, equity research and healthcare investing. Over his career, he has led or held senior transaction roles in deals totaling more than $25 billion in aggregate value, combining leadership of collaborations with major biopharmaceutical companies with an understanding of the clinical, commercial and financial factors that shape partnering and investment decisions.
Most recently, Mr. Vat-Ho served as Chief Business Officer and a member of the Management Board of Ryvu Therapeutics, where he originated and closed the company’s collaboration with Exelixis on a novel ADC payload, as well as its multi-target immuno-oncology research collaboration with BioNTech. At Ryvu, he also oversaw partnering/BD, U.S. investor relations, commercial development and alliance management. Previously, as Vice President, Business Development at Affimed, he originated and closed a multi-target license and discovery collaboration with Roivant and served as alliance manager for the company’s partnerships including Roche/Genentech.
Prior to that, Mr. Vat-Ho spent eight years at Pfizer Oncology in business development and commercial development, rising to Senior Director and Team Lead, Strategy, Business Development & Alliances. He worked on transactions including the $14 billion acquisition of Medivation, the $850 million upfront avelumab collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and several strategic financing and out-licensing transactions. He began his career in equity research and healthcare investing at firms including BMO Capital Markets and Broadfin Capital, building a foundation in valuation, capital markets and investor engagement.
Mr. Vat-Ho holds an A.B. in Biology from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.
