Jennifer Burdman is no stranger to high-stakes patent litigation. Representing LifeNet Health in 2014 she won a tissue graft patent case when a jury awarded the company $34.7 million in damages. After that, she was on a trial team in 2011 that secured a jury verdict of $919 million in favor of DuPont against a […]
Features Biotechnology
Juarez de Oliveira – Amgen
Whether it’s soccer, diversity and equality, or the law, the effort and passion from Juarez de Oliveira is the same: He gives his all. As the head of legal, Brazil, for Amgen, the American biotechnology company, he says his country’s pharma industry is as regulated as it is exciting, and Oliveira aids the company by ensuring compliance and advising on business matters […]
Charles Berkman – Ligand Pharmaceuticals
It seemed like just another morning—until employees got to their desks to find pudding cups with a note reading: “The proof is in the pudding.” To explain: The day before, incoming Ligand Pharmaceuticals CEO John Higgins gave a speech to employees about his philosophy, his goals for the company and the “period of high change” […]
Keary Dunn – Celularity
Keary Dunn recognized early on the opportunities and implications of immunotherapy and cellular therapy. As new BS graduate and young neuropharmacology lab technician at Georgetown University, he undertook cutting edge science research. Specifically, he studied the effects of cocaine and heroin on the immune system, testing the theory—on mice—that such narcotics suppressed the body’s greatest […]
Nicholas McGrath – MPM Capital
It’s a different type of executive team that Nicholas McGrath interacts with as general counsel and chief compliance officer of MPM Capital, a life sciences venture capital firm with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Brisbane, California. Doctorates and medical degrees, not master’s in business administration, bestow the investment professionals employed at the company. That’s the […]
Jim Kastenmayer – Viela Bio
Imagine strolling through a park splashed with the greens, yellows and reds of trees, grass and flowers. The gravel or woodchips crunch underfoot as you enjoy exercise, sunshine and good health. And suddenly, you can’t see well or have trouble walking. It could be an attack of a terrifying and debilitating condition called neuromyelitis optica […]
Jeffrey C. Pepe – Silverback Therapeutics
Talk to Jeffrey C. Pepe and it’s obvious he’s as much scientist as legal boss of Seattle-based biopharmaceutical startup Silverback Therapeutics, advancing potent first-in-kind immunotherapies. He’ll put in layman’s terms the complex immunotherapies Silverback anticipates bringing into the clinic later this year. If all goes well—and that’s an issue considering how COVID-19 threatens to set […]
Shawnte Mitchell – Aptevo Therapeutics
Will the data provide strong, tangible results or prove inconclusive? Will patients feel positive, negative or no side effects? And, most essentially, will the new therapies serve as a cure for the insidious disease that is cancer? Right now is a critical time for Aptevo Therapeutics and its several oncology therapies. With many potential treatments […]
