aibioAkebia stockholders approve raising authorized common shares to 500,000,000
Tickers AKBA
Stockholders approved raising authorized common stock from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 at a June 17, 2026 meeting, with 88,853,129 votes against. The 8-K does not say how many shares are outstanding or planned for issue.
Key facts
- Company
- Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKBA)
- News type
- Listings
- Primary source
- Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. 8-K (2026-06-22)
Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. held its 2026 annual meeting of stockholders on June 17, 2026 and reported the results in an 8-K filed June 22, 2026. Stockholders approved an amendment to the company's Ninth Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation. It raises authorized capital stock from 375,000,000 to 525,000,000 shares and authorized common stock from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 shares. The vote was 102,504,108 for, 88,853,129 against and 293,594 abstaining. Akebia filed the certificate of amendment with the Delaware Secretary of State on June 18, 2026.
The vote and the board
The 88,853,129 votes against the increase are a large block. The 8-K does not say how many shares are outstanding or what the company plans to issue under the higher limit.
Stockholders elected Adrian Adams, Michael Rogers and LeAnne M. Zumwalt as Class III directors, each to serve until the 2029 annual meeting. Each of them drew a large number of withheld votes: 41,312,586 for Adams, 40,975,783 for Rogers and 45,426,491 for Zumwalt.
The advisory vote on executive pay passed with 89,838,833 votes for and 51,140,010 against, with 2,374,057 abstaining. In the advisory vote on how often to hold that vote, 112,927,161 shares favored every year, 2,739,581 favored every two years, 20,605,688 favored every three years, and 7,080,470 abstained. The board says it intends to hold the vote annually. Stockholders also ratified Ernst & Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026, with 173,306,165 votes for, 15,754,273 against and 2,590,393 abstaining.
The business behind the share request
Akebia calls itself a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company with two commercial products for kidney disease. Its 10-K for 2025, filed on February 26, 2026, says its main product, Vafseo (vadadustat), was approved by the FDA in March 2024 for anemia due to chronic kidney disease in adults on dialysis for at least three months. Vafseo entered the market in January 2025. The company had supply agreements with dialysis organizations caring for nearly 100% of dialysis patients in the United States. The 10-K says about 290,000 dialysis patients have prescribing access to Vafseo, and that it is approved for adults in 37 countries. It puts the current US market opportunity at approximately $1 billion, based on current ESA pricing.
The second product, Auryxia (ferric citrate), reached loss of exclusivity in March 2025. On January 22, 2026, Teva Pharmaceuticals received tentative approval for its generic application. The 10-K says there is currently one authorized generic, sold by a distributor, but that the company expects additional generic competition in 2026. It also says that if more generics are approved and enter the market, Akebia expects a negative effect on its revenue.
The pipeline has clinical and early-stage parts. Praliciguat, licensed from Cyclerion Therapeutics in June 2021, is in a Phase 2 trial for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a rare kidney disease, with the first patient dosed in December 2025. In November 2025 Akebia bought the assets of Q32 Bio, including AKB-097, an anti-C3d-Factor H fusion protein complement inhibitor. The company expects to start a Phase 2 basket study of AKB-097 in the second half of 2026 in IgA nephropathy, C3 glomerulopathy and lupus nephritis. AKB-9090 is expected to enter a Phase 1 study in healthy volunteers in the first half of 2026, and AKB-10108 is preclinical.
The money
The SEC financial data tied to the 10-K show a net loss of $5.3 million for 2025, against $69.4 million for 2024. Research and development expense was $62.4 million in 2025 and $37.7 million in 2024. Cash provided by operations was $68.0 million in 2025, after $40.7 million of cash used in operations in 2024. Year-end 2024 cash and cash equivalents were $51.9 million.
Those figures show a sharp swing in 2025, and the financial data give no breakdown of what produced the result. The authorized share increase gives the company room to issue stock, and the 88,853,129 votes against show that a large part of the voting stake did not approve it.