Mark J. Litton

Mark Litton, M.B.A., Ph.D., has served as our Chief Operating Officer since July 2019. Prior to joining Athira Pharma, Inc., Dr. Litton served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company, from August 2018 to April 2019. Dr. Litton served as the Chief Business Officer, Treasurer, and Secretary from 2004 to 2018 of Alder BioPharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company co-founded by Dr. Litton in 2004, which was acquired by Lundbeck A/S in October 2019. From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Litton served as Vice President of Business Development for Celltech Group, where he was responsible for securing, commercializing, and partnering on numerous novel discoveries and therapeutic programs. In 1999, Dr. Litton joined Celltech Group as an employee of Chiroscience Group plc and was later promoted to Vice President of Business Development after Chiroscience’s merger with Celltech Group in 1999. From 1997 to 1999, Dr. Litton served as the Manager of Business Development for Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc. (now Sirna Therapeutics, Inc.), a biopharmaceutical company and wholly owned subsidiary of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he helped form relationships with Eli Lilly and Company, Roche Bioscience and GlaxoWellcome plc (now GlaxoSmithKline plc) a biopharmaceutical company. From 1991 to 1994, Dr. Litton served as a Research Associate for DNAX Research Institute, a research facility of Schering- Plough (now Merck & Co., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company).

Dr. Litton earned a Ph.D. in immunology from Stockholm University in 1997, an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University in 1994 and a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of California Santa Cruz in 1990.