What prompted your move from in-house counsel to founding the world’s first IP strategy company to focus exclusively on biosciences, and how has your previous experience shaped your current approach? 

I’d previously worked as a patent attorney in the life sciences sector, but because of my broad technology background I was frequently roped into doing work in other fields. This eroded my interest in life sciences patent drafting and made me consider a change of profession. 

Early in my career, I’d taken a break from IP law and started a medical devices company, which ended up creating a device that obtained Conformité Européene approval in Europe and ISO1345 registration. This fuelled my interest in both the commercial and IP sides of business, and I was looking for a way to coherently integrate these parts of my background.

In 2018, I managed to be one of the 25 people a year to gain entry to Cambridge University’s MPhil degree in bioscience enterprise, which was the perfect place for me to rediscover my love of intellectual property, business and biotech. This led directly to the creation of Biophile, the world’s first intangible asset management and strategy company to focus exclusively on life sciences, specifically increasing the investability of bioeconomy start-ups.

In 2022, you told IAM that the biggest challenge facing your clients was the decrease in funding opportunities for start-ups. Two years on, how has this shifted, and how do you expect these pressures to evolve in the next 12 months? 

Wallets in high-risk areas are still snapping shut globally as interest rates remain high. Start-ups that would have had Series B rounds of US$100 million or more are still struggling to get past the US$50-million mark, which is indicative of funding constraints. However, new bioeconomy funds are forming, which suggests to me that things may be about to get better for life sciences funding generally. Funders have certainly become more discriminating when it comes to how they spend their money.

What key pieces of advice would you give to those trying to monetise their trade secrets, particularly when it comes to licensing and maintaining the integrity of confidential information?

Have a coherent IP strategy for the company globally and for each technology type. This takes a lot of the drag out of IP decision making along the commercialisation pathway. Many of my clients in the bioeconomy space have to rely on contract manufacturing organisations to get their products to market quickly. This means that they need robust trade secret protection and methodologies to ensure that they retain control of their intellectual property and maximise their earning potential.

You have significant experience working with cutting-edge research organisations, non-profits, start-ups and public companies. How do you tailor your strategy depending on the type of client you are dealing with? 

Each client is as unique as its intangible assets. While I would love to have a cookie-cutter way of approaching IP strategy, this is simply not possible in the diverse ecosystems in which my clients find themselves. One day I’m working with implantable medical devices, the next with carbon-capture technology. Each of these has a different commercialisation pathway, commercial strategy, IP protection regime and approach to partnering and funding. My methodologies do have one goal in common though: to increase my clients’ investability.

With a career spanning two decades, what has been your biggest professional challenge to date, and how did you overcome it?

Facing the reality that, while I could have continued functioning as a patent attorney, it did not allow me to bring all parts of my personality and experience to the forefront – I constantly felt like I was not having an impact. However, with my intangible asset management and strategy focus at Biophile, I feel like my clients are benefitting to the maximum from my experience in business and intellectual property, having personally launched new med-tech products, grown companies, obtained funding and having fought IP battles along the way. This is very useful for them, as they frequently encounter professionals who have only worked in patent law firms that profess to do IP strategy. They often find that this is usually only a filing strategy, rather than a coherent roadmap to transition their IP rights from legal documents to business assets.