Michael Fairbanks

Chairman of the Board of Directors and Co-founder

Michael Fairbanks is Chairman of the Board of Akagera Medicines. He has invested in solutions to cancer, acute injuries and infectious diseases for more than twenty years. He co-founded and chairs Silver Creek Pharmaceuticals, a clinical company based in San Francisco, which focuses on solutions to acute injuries in heart, kidney and brain.

Mike was a U.S. Peace Corps teacher in Kisii, Kenya (1979-1981). He is a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He was a Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Mike worked in Colombia during “the Apertura,” El Salvador after the peace accord, Serbia after the Yugoslav wars, Rwanda since the genocide, Afghanistan during the war, and Haiti before and after the earthquake in 2010. He worked closely with two dozen presidents in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa on business strategy, export competitiveness and private sector development. He co-led Sir John Templeton’s five-year project, the SEVEN Fund, on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. He worked with the President of African Development Bank on his China in Africa strategy, the President of the Inter-American Development Bank on his Opportunities for the Majority Initiative, and the President of the World Bank on his Comprehensive Development Framework.

He co–authored Harvard Business School’s landmark book on business strategy in emerging markets. “Plowing the Sea, Nurturing the Hidden Sources of Advantage in Developing Nations,” with a Foreword by Professor Michael Porter, was a Washington Post best seller. He conceived and edited, “In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty,” with a Foreword by Pastor Rick Warren. He conceived and edited the global best seller, “Culture Matters, How Values Shape Human Progress,” with Sam Huntington and Larry Harrison at Harvard. He has testified to the US Congress on post-conflict nation building, the effectiveness of foreign aid, and rebuilding Haiti. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Project Syndicate, The Hill, Fox News, Huffington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Philanthropy Magazine, and The Harvard International Review. He and his wife, Marylee Fairbanks, produced two award winning films about Africa.

He was Chairman of the Board of the Akilah Institute for Women, the first women’s college in East Africa;  and was a director of the Rwanda Biomedical Center, which oversees that nation’s healthcare system. He studied biochemistry and philosophy at the University of Scranton, a Jesuit University in Pennsylvania where he was a trustee for six years, and received a doctorate in humane letters in 2006 for his “devotion to social justice”. He studied African affairs and international finance at Columbia University in New York City.

He is a citizen of the United States, Ireland, and Rwanda.

Daryl C. Drummond, Ph.D.

Chief Science Officer, Senior Vice President, and co-Founder

Daryl C Drummond is the Founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and Senior Vice President of Akagera Medicines.  Through June of 2019, Dr. Drummond served as the Head of Research and Senior Vice President of Discovery for Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, a public biotechnology company headquartered in Cambridge, MA, where he oversaw the discovery efforts for Merrimack’s Nanotherapeutics and Biologics-based therapeutics. Dr. Drummond received a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from Indiana University in 1997, with an emphasis on membrane biochemistry and biophysics, and later completed a postdoc under the renowned father of lipid-based drug delivery systems, Demetrios Papahadjopoulos at California Pacific Medical Center.   

Dr. Drummond was a principle inventor for a wide range of nanotechnology-based drugs and platform technologies, most notably Onivyde, a highly stabilized liposomal formulation of irinotecan.  He joined Merrimack in 2009 following the merger of Merrimack with Hermes Biosciences.  Overall, Dr. Drummond has more than 25 years of experience in the research and development of advanced drug delivery systems, including five unique drugs or imaging agents that have been tested in various clinical trials, an NDA and EMA approval for Onivyde, >40 issued patents or patent applications, and more than 75 peer reviewed publications.

The focus of his research is in developing targeted nanotherapeutics for treating a wide range of solid tumors.  He successfully developed novel platform technologies for targeting lipidic nanocarriers such as liposomes using a range of novel ligands, but most notably Fab’ or scFv antibody fragments.  He has also developed platform technologies for dramatically improving the in vivo drug retention of difficult to stabilize small molecule drugs, and for systemic delivery of nucleic acids.  Three of their nanotherapeutics are being studied in clinical trials, including an ErbB2-targeted liposomal doxorubicin which was evaluated in a Phase II study in ErbB2-overexpressing breast cancers and a nanoliposomal formulation of irinotecan which was approved by both the EMA and FDA following promising results in a Phase III trial in gemcitabine-refractory pancreatic cancer.  Onivyde is currently being studied in front line pancreatic cancer in combination with oxaliplatin and 5FU and in second line small cell lung cancer by Ipsen Pharmaceuticals.  A fourth antibody targeted lipososomal drug (MM-310) was recently evaluated in a Phase I study in multiple EphA2 overexpressing solid tumors.  In addition, Dr. Drummond previously oversaw the discovery and development of more traditional biologics, such as a stabilized TRAIL-Fc fusion and a monoclonal antibody against the immuno-oncology target, TNFR2.

At Akagera, he is advancing the use of these sophisticated lipid-based nanotechnologies to deliver novel and highly potent anti-bacterial agents directly to innate immune cell reservoirs for these mycobacterium or bacterium, and assembling a highly experienced scientific team and network of collaborators to target some of the world’s most challenging and neglected diseases, including tuberculosis. 

Dmitri B. Kirpotin, Ph.D.

Chief Investigator and co-Founder

Dmitri Kirpotin, Ph.D. is a leading expert in lipid-based drug delivery systems, and currently serves as a Chief Investigator and Founder at Akagera Medicines.  Dmitri was previously a Chief Investigator at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, and a Founder and Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Hermes Biosciences. He is also a co-inventor on more than 40 patents and patent applications, and more than 60 peer reviewed scientific publications in the field of nano-therapeutics and the underlying drug delivery technologies used to create them, including that of the commercial drug, Onivyde, used to treat patients with gemcitabine refractory pancreatic cancer.   For more than three decades he has played a critical role in developing and translating advanced lipid-based nanotherapeutics into the clinic, with six drugs entering the clinic that he was involved and played a key role in advancing.   Dmitri’s multidisciplinary experience is exceptionally broad and covers key areas including medicinal and organic chemistry, biophysics, analytical methods and formulation development, and pharmacology.

Alexander Koshkaryev, PhD.

Principle Scientist, Pharmacology and Nano-Engineering

 Dr. Alexander Koshkaryev is a Principal Scientist at Akagera Medicines, with significant expertise in nano-engineering and the translation of nanomedicines into the clinic through a rigorous understanding of the pharmacology and toxicology of these sophisticated drug delivery systems.  

He holds a PhD in Chemical Technology from Tomsk State Polithechnic University, Tomsk, Russia, and a PhD in Medicine Biochemistry from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.  He also completed his post-doctoral training  at the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology & Nanomedicine, Northeastern University, Boston, MA under the supervision of the highly distinguished pioneer in liposomes and nanomedicine, Professor Vladimir Torchilin. 

Prior to joining Akagera Medicines, he worked at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, where he played a critical role in the pre-clinical development of nano-liposomal and immunoliposomal formulations for multiple anti-cancer drugs, and was a co-inventor on two patents.   His lead project at Merrimack was an Ephrin A2 antibody-targeted liposomal formulation of a novel docetaxel prodrug, which entered Phase I clinical trials in 2017.  Alexander is an author on twenty-five peer reviewed scientific publications and has more than a decade of experience working in the drug delivery field.

At Akagera Medicine, Alexander is helping lead the in vitro and in vivo pharmacology for preclinical development of anti-bacterial nanotherapeutics.

Charles O. Noble

Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemist/Formulations Expert

 Charles Noble completed his PhD in chemistry at Louisiana State University working with conductive polymers and dendrimers. His postdoctoral work at California Pacific Medical Center and the University of California San Francisco focused on antibody-targeted immunoliposomes and drug delivery to brain tumors. As a Senior Scientist at Hermes Biosciences and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals he was a key contributor to development of multiple liposome-based drugs, including a liposomal irinotecan (MM-398) which was approved by the FDA in 2015 for treating pancreatic cancer and is marketed as Onivyde®. In 2011 he co-founded ZoneOne Pharma, Inc. and had the role of President and Scientist. At ZoneOne Pharma Charles has managed multiple collaborations and contracts with pharma and government agencies. He is an inventor on 5 issued patents and has co-authored over 50 publications.  At Akagera, Charles serves many roles and leads the analytical and bioanalytical characterization work of Akagera’s novel therapeutic designs.

Jackie Drummond

Head of Operations

Jackie heads all of operations at Akagera and also serves as a project manager for Akagera’s critical development efforts.  She joined Akagera from Takeda Pharmaceuticals where she served as a global project manager for their Global Outcomes Research group from 2017-2020.  Before that, she worked as part of the Medical Affairs and Finance groups at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals from 2009-2017, where she likewise held key operational and finance roles, including support both the global manufacturing and supply chain for FDA-approved drug Onivyde, and later medical education grants to support the same drug.  She also worked for almost a decade as the Head of Operations for a small biotechnology company, Hermes Biosciences, and in Pharmaceutical Sales for Watson Pharmaceuticals, all in San Francisco.  Jackie has a strong science background and holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, and overall has worked almost three decades in the Biotech and Pharmaceutical industries, helping support the development of more than a dozen unique drugs in various disease areas.

Julie Kennedy

Director of External relations

Julie Kennedy works with Mike to identify non-dilutive partners for AKAGERA Medicines, ensuring the best returns for investors and contributing to the health of the Company as it pursues its mission to develop a cure tuberculosis.  

Julie started her career as an entrepreneur, founding and leading DC SCORES and AMERICA SCORES, a US-based educational non-profit organization that inspires urban youth to lead healthy lives, be engaged students, and have the confidence and character to make a difference in the world.

Her work at AMERICA SCORES earned her a number of local and national awards, including Washingtonian of the Year, in Washington, DC, a Daily Points of Light award from President Clinton, and a finalist mention for the Presidential National Service Award.

Julie acts as the Chief Operating Officer of Trusty.care, a healthcare and insurance technology company focused on simplifying the most vexing healthcare and insurance decisions. Trusty.care creates precision benefits tools which delivers a benefits picture unique to each person. The Company’s first go-to-market products focus on Medicare, and older Americans aging into the Medicare system for the first time.

Prior to Trusty.care, Julie was founder and CEO of a New York-based strategy and finance advisory firm that worked with high-potential entrepreneurs in frontier markets. 

Previous positions include: Program Director for Pioneers of Prosperity, Central America and the Caribbean, at the OTF Group, overseeing a program that provided financing and technical support to small and medium-sized enterprises across the region; Director of Monitoring and Evaluation for the Millennium Promise Alliance - one of the executing arms of the Millennium Villages Project; and, Director of the Girls’ Education Initiative at Magna International. Julie also held research positions at Harvard and Columbia Universities.

Julie holds a BA in comparative governments from Georgetown University, an MPA from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a Certificate in Program Design, Evaluation and Monitoring of International Projects from the University of Bologna. A native of Canada, Julie speaks French and Spanish.