Ric Kayne (L) and PGA Tour player Matt Kuchar on the Swilcan Bridge at St. Andrews in Scotland, competing in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in 2018 (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Bil­lion­aire Athi­ra backer close­ly tied to oust­ed CEO Leen Kawas launch­es an at­tack, de­mands new chief

The bil­lion­aire backer be­hind the trou­bled Alzheimer’s start­up Athi­ra Phar­ma — and a close as­so­ciate of oust­ed CEO Leen Kawas — is mak­ing a very pub­lic bid to purge the new CEO and put him­self on the board along­side ex-No­var­tis CFO George Bick­er­staff.

In a lengthy let­ter re­leased Wednes­day morn­ing, Richard “Ric” Kayne harsh­ly crit­i­cized CEO Mark Lit­ton, who stepped in as CEO af­ter Kawas ex­it­ed when the board con­clud­ed that she had ma­nip­u­lat­ed im­ages used in her doc­tor­al the­sis and oth­er pa­pers that were at the cen­ter of Athi­ra’s ap­proach to treat­ing Alzheimer’s. But lat­er on Wednes­day, Athi­ra’s board blast­ed back, de­fend­ing them­selves and not­ing that Kayne had pushed to get Kawas back in­to the com­pa­ny.

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