Practical LawConferences

Helen is a  Lifesciences Solicitor with expertise in commercial & regulatory law (UK & European). She was also member of a UK medicines regulator for ten years, & held senior in-house Counsel roles with Sanofi, Novartis and Abbott advising innovator, generics, vaccines, biotech & FMCG businesses.

Funke is a senior leader for Roche, the world’s largest biotech.

She is a practising solicitor, leading the legal, company secretarial, corporate compliance and data protection functions supporting Roche’s pharmaceutical operations in the UK, Ireland, Malta and Gibraltar. Her team of 7 legal and corporate compliance professionals provide pragmatic, commercial legal support to core functions across the organization and have been recognised for their innovative approach (Financial Times Innovative Lawyers awards 2014 and 2015).

She is regarded as being one of the leading lawyers working within the UK life sciences industry (GC Powerlist 2013, 2014 and 2016) and has received multiple awards and other recognition for her legal work. She is a highly regarded speaker, speaking regularly at conferences in the UK and abroad.

Funke is also a diversity campaigner within the legal profession, holding a number of leadership positions within various diversity organisations, championing a range of diversity projects whilst also leading on a number of initiatives.

She was recently admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, recognising the positive impact and outstanding contributions that she has made to British society as a whole.

Maria Chiara Atzori is a member of the Novartis Data Privacy Leadership Team and heads the privacy organization in Switzerland. In her role, Maria Chiara ensures leadership on privacy governance and manages the Swiss privacy team, which provides legal support to all Novartis divisions in Switzerland in all areas of the business. Maria Chiara is an attorney admitted to the Italian Bar and holds an MBA from the Edinburg Business School. She is E/CIPP certified member of the IAPP (International Association Privacy Professionals).

Paula is the international head of Eversheds’ Privacy & Information Law Group and also leads on our international e-commerce work.

Paula has extensive experience in data protection/privacy law domestically and internationally. She is currently advising clients on data protection compliance issues in 60+ countries around the world.

Paula has led a number of projects for the life sciences industry including medical devices companies on privacy terms for use with clinicians, hospitals and their patients; and a project in relation to online supply of pharmaceutical products including consents for cookies and online data collection, from responsible pharmacists, pharmacist technicians and practitioners; data privacy notices for upload; cross border data transfers; preparation of terms of use; and regulatory compliance advice.

Paula is noted in Chambers as “an incredible lawyer – practical, knowledgeable and able to assemble a great team.”

Simon is a partner and heads the International Patents group. He specialises in patent litigation and advisory work in a variety of industries, but particularly in Life Sciences, and also does pharmaceutical regulatory work. He advises pharmaceutical clients in relation to patent infringement and validity, launch strategy, preliminary injunction applications etc. and represents clients in the Patents Court, the Court of Appeal and at the European Patent Office. He also regularly co-operates with lawyers conducting parallel litigation in the US and other European jurisdictions.

Simon leads Eversheds’ international Health & Life Sciences Sector Group.

Simon has over 20 years’ experience in the industry and has worked both in private practice and in-house. He is also a former research scientist giving him a commercial and industry perspective to his practice.

Simon advises on IP issues including branding, copyright, patents and confidential information, as well as regulatory advice including advice on borderline products, classification of products, CE marking, marketing and labelling, advertising, and recall and liability issues.

Simon also serves as Company Secretary to the Cell Therapy Catapult.

Chambers & Partners 2016 states that Simon is “exceptionally personable and easy to work alongside,” according to clients, who add that “he is responsive, technically very good and pragmatic.”

Passionate about litigation and people, Cécile Derycke has grown a practice focused on disputes in the life sciences area. She handles product liability cases, commercial litigation matters and various contentious situations regarding regulatory requirements. Cécile joined Hogan Lovells more than thirteen years ago as a general litigator and product liability lawyer. She is the Co-Head of Hogan Lovells’ global Life Sciences Litigation Arbitration & Employment Team. Hand-in-hand with our regulatory team, Cécile built the Life Sciences practice of our Paris office which she now coordinates.

Rhianon is lead attorney responsible for providing legal advice in respect of clinical development and regulatory matters within Novo Nordisk globally as well as advising the device development and clinical supply areas. She supports all areas of clinical development for Novo Nordisk including: clinical operations from Phases I to IV, including non-interventional studies, investigator sponsored studies, and usability studies, pre-clinical development, regulatory matters, data privacy and more.

Rhianon joined Novo Nordisk in January 2010 and currently lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. However, she previously spent 3 years working as Legal Counsel in the UK Affiliate of Novo Nordisk providing legal support on market activities including distribution, sales and marketing and market access in the UK and Ireland. She also has expertise in competition law, data privacy, product liability, global safety and employment law and is UK qualified solicitor.

In 2011-2, she has also spent time working in Novo Nordisk’s US HQ in Princeton, supporting the US BioPharm marketing, and Medical Affairs teams.

She has previously worked for both Sanofi-Aventis and ExxonMobil in the UK.

Paul is a senior lawyer in the Patents Group in London. His specialism is UK and multi-jurisdictional patent litigation. Paul advises, publishes and speaks on this subject regularly. In particular, Paul is advising clients on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and leads the Taylor Wessing UPC Taskforce. He is currently preparing a practitioner’s Guide to the UPC to be published in 2017.

As a Counsel in Hogan Lovells’ London office, Matthew helps life sciences companies manage difficult relationships. He has helped a leading pharmaceutical company defend product liability claims and navigate a regulatory investigation following the voluntary withdrawal of a blockbuster product, advised a medical device company facing a group action brought by patients, and helped a global manufacturer in the life sciences sector work through a series of supply chain disputes across Europe. Matthew’s extensive experience of complex, cross-border litigation means he gets the commercial context and quickly finds the best solution.

Cameron advises on all aspects of competition law matters across a wide range of industries including the pharmaceutical sector, the retail/consumer sector as well as the telecommunications industry. Cameron has extensive experience advising on competition law and regulatory issues, including:

• Cartels
• Dominance and behavioural issues
• Merger control
• State aid
• General compliance work.

Cameron advises on contentious and non-contentious matters and has regularly represented clients before the European Commission, the General Court and the European Court of Justice as well as the UK competition authorities and Courts.

Cameron also has a particular focus on the interface between IP and competition law and has significant experience advising clients on IP management, enforcement and licensing practices, particularly in the pharmaceuticals and communications sectors.

Cameron’s major clients include Amcor, Associated British Foods, Diageo, HTC, Marks & Spencer, Mylan, Qantas and Watson (including the Arrow and Actavis groups) who he advises on a wide range of projects as well as day-to-day competition law matters.

Victoria Hordern has over 10 years’ experience advising on all aspects of privacy and information law. As a senior associate in the Privacy and Information Management practice, she has advised pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and medical device companies as well as others in the health industry on a range of data protection and privacy matters, including mobile and online apps, international data transfers, data retention, data security, policy development as well as compliance with the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation. She is regularly featured in journals and blogs analysing data privacy developments.

Ian Inman is the Group Manager for the public services team in the ICO’s strategic liaison department. The team provides advice and guidance on data protection issues to key stakeholders in the Health, Education and Local Government sectors.

Ian has worked at the ICO for almost 9 years, starting out as a case officer in the complaints teams before working as a team manager, a senior policy officer and has worked at group manager level in both the ICO’s policy delivery and strategic liaison departments. He is assistant course director on the ICO’s British Computing Society accredited Certificate in Data Protection training course.

Robert Istepanian is recognized as one of the leading authorities and pioneers of mobile healthcare and the first scientist to have coined and defined the concept of ‘m-Health’. He holds a PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Loughborough University, UK, and he has since held several academic and research posts in the UK and Canada. These include Visiting Academic and Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London, UK (2013-2016); Professor of Data Communications for Healthcare and Founding Director of the Medical Information and Network Technologies Research Centre (MINT) at Kingston University, London, UK (2003-2013); Senior Lecturer at the Universities of Portsmouth, UK (1995-1998) and Brunel University, London (2000-2003); and Associate Professor at Ryerson University, Toronto and Adjunct Professor at the University of West Ontario, Canada (1999-2000). He has also been Visiting Professor at St. George’s Medical School, University of London (2007-2009), and Leverhulme ‘Distinguished Visiting Fellow’ at the Centre for Global e-Health Innovation, University of Toronto and the University’s Health Network, Canada (2008-2009). He was awarded the 2009 IEEE Award for the best and most cited IEEE Transactions paper from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society for his seminal work on m-Health published in 2004. He was also the recipient of the IEE Heaviside Award in 1999 from the Institution of Electrical Engineering, UK. Professor Istepanian has led numerous multi-disciplinary research projects on m-Health, e-Health and telehealth, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK, The European Commission, the British Council, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Leverhulme Trust. In addition, he has led industry-sponsored projects and clinical trials funded by global telecom and mobile companies. He has also served as the vice-chair of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) focus group on standardization of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) for developing the e-Health service layer for M2M communication standards (2012-2013).

He has served as an expert on numerous assessment and peer evaluation panels on healthcare technology innovations, well-being, m-Health and e-Health, including the Dutch Philips (STW) partnership program on ‘Healthy Life Style’ (2011-2105); the Science Foundation Ireland SFI- Strategic Research Cluster Grants (2008 and 2011); the Finnish Strategic Centers of Science, Technology and Innovation (SHOK) on advances on well-being program, 2012; and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) on large scale strategic and leading edge projects for health services, 2009. In addition, he has been peer reviewer and panelist for the following UK Funding bodies: EPSRC, BBSRC, Wellcome Trust, Department of Health, Service Delivery Organisation, Health Innovation Challenge Fund, National Institute of Health Research, BUPA Foundation, and Diabetes – UK.

Professor Istepanian has served on the editorial board of IEEE Transaction on Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on NanoBioScience, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications, Journal of Mobile Multimedia, and Journal of World Medical & Health Policy. He also served as guest editor of special issues of IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine in areas of mobile health and IEEE Transactions of NanoBioScience on micro-array image processing. He has served on numerous technical committees of the IEEE and other international conferences and chaired organising and technical committees of national and international conferences in the UK, USA and elsewhere, including the Telemed Conferences at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, the IET, London, the 2000 World Medical Congress, Chicago, and the successive IEEE-Engineering in Medicine and Biology International Annual Conferences (IEEE-EMBS). He has also been invited to numerous keynote lectures at international conferences and meetings in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and other countries. His publications exceed 200 peer-reviewed papers and books on mobile communications for healthcare, m-Health, control systems and biomedical signal processing.

Sergio Napolitano is Legal Affairs and Trade Director at Medicines for Europe.  Before joining Medicines for Europe, Sergio Napolitano worked in the Directorate General for External Policies of the European Parliament where he was part of the Secretariat of the Committee on International Trade (INTA). In 2012, he authored a Report of the European Parliament on “The Role of the Congress in Shaping the US Trade Policy”. He previously worked in the Trade Policy Department of the Permanent Representation of Italy to the EU on multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral trade negotiations, EU investment policy and IPR. Sergio Napolitano is qualified for mediator certification in most American states. He holds a degree in Law from the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa, an Erasmus Diploma at the Université Paris-Sorbonne, and a LL.M. on EU and European Public Law from the University College of London (UCL).

As an in-house senior legal counsel, Gautier has more than fifteen years of experience, working in the field of clinical research for both public institution dedicated to research and pharmaceuticals companies. He offers legal and regulatory support for research and development activities, marketed product and manufacturing processes. He also presents expertise in managing insurance portfolio.

He had been a member of ethics comittee in France from 2009 to 2014 and  was recently member of the Expert Group on the developement and implications of patent law in the field of biotechnology  and genetic engineering of European Commission DG Market.

Aleksandar Rusanov is a Legal Adviser in the Legal Department of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Since he joined in April 2014, he is dealing with various legal issues relating to the activities of the EMA including access to documents, transparency, proactive publication of clinical data, advanced therapy medicinal products, sharing of confidential information, pharmacovigilance, clinical trials, etc. Before joining the EMA, Aleksandar was an associate in the Life Sciences team of a leading international law firm and advised clients on a wide range of matters relating to medicinal products and medical devices. Aleksandar was also seconded to a number of pharmaceutical companies to assist in activities relating to compliance, pharmacovigilance, as well as promotion and advertising of medicinal products.

Sally Shorthose has wealth of experience working with businesses at the cutting edge of research and technology and whose intellectual property is of prime importance.

When it comes to transactions, Sally is the obvious choice: she was previously the legal director of Novartis UK and has worked on global licensing projects for the United Nations.

Sally is one of Bird & Bird’s leading intellectual property partners, based in the UK.  She provides a full range of intellectual property commercial advice and support to her clients, including licensing, partnering and exploitation agreements, research, development and marketing collaborations. She also frequently advises clients on regulatory and ‘freedom to operate’ matters, and manages significant due diligence matters. As a transactional intellectual property lawyer, she provides advice in relation to the protection and exploitation of a full range of IP rights, both in stand alone transactions and as part of an acquisition, divestment or investment activity.

Andrew leads the Life Sciences Commercial and Regulatory team in Hogan Lovells’ London office.  He is a partner in the Hogan Lovells Corporate Commercial Practice Group and also head of the firm’s Africa practice.  He understands the regulated environment in which his clients operate. He has worked alongside the in-house legal department of major multi-national life sciences corporations for many years and advises on a wide range of issues, from sensitive funding arrangements to strategic international commercial transactions including co-promotion, joint ventures, outsourcing, supply and distribution agreements.

Suzanne is responsible for all legal matters affecting the Abcam group, including M&A, licensing, IP, company secretarial, corporate governance and compliance. Suzanne joined Abcam in July 2015, is a member of the Executive Leadership Team and Company Secretary to the main board and committees.

Suzanne is a UK-qualified solicitor who started her legal career at British law firm Richards Butler (now Reed Smith) in 1992. She has worked as an in-house lawyer for over 20 years at companies including Actavis, Genzyme, SmithKline Beecham and Aventis, with a particular focus on M&A, complex litigation, competition law and licensing in the life sciences sector.

Suzanne has a law degree and an MBA. She has a working knowledge of French and has lived in the UK, New Zealand, France and Belgium.

• Called to the Bar in 2000.
• Joined GlaxoSmithKline in 2003.
• Work primarily on product liability matters including unitary and group action personal injury cases in the UK and Europe. I also have litigation responsibilities in the Middle East, Africa, Russia and the CIS.
• Also involved in various Arbitrations involving insurance coverage disputes.
• Member of various organisations concerned with civil justice including the European Justice Forum.