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Lantheus is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts with offices in Canada and Sweden. For more than 60 years, Lantheus has been instrumental in pioneering the field of medical imaging and has helped physicians enhance patient care with its broad product portfolio. In 2023, Lantheus had more than $1B in revenues, led by sales of imaging agents for cardiac ultrasound and for prostate cancer.
Lantheus is an entrepreneurial, agile, growing organization that provides innovative diagnostics, targeted therapeutics, and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that empower clinicians to find, fight and follow disease. At Lantheus our purpose and values guide our behaviors in all interactions and play a vital role in creating a dynamic environment that contributes to our success. Every employee is crucial to our success; we respect one another and act as one knowing that someone’s health is in our hands. We believe in helping people be their best and are seeking to bring together a diverse group of individuals with different viewpoints and skill sets to be a part of a productive and inclusive team.
Summary of Role:
We are looking for a highly strategic attorney with 10 - 13+ years of relevant pharmaceutical/biotech industry IP legal experience to join the Lantheus Legal Department as Executive Director, Intellectual Property. This role will be responsible for providing practical, solution-oriented legal and strategic advice relating to our IP portfolio. Candidates should have experience managing a wide range of IP matters and providing pragmatic counsel to in-house business partners.
This position will report to the Vice President, Deputy General Counsel IP and will be based in Bedford, Massachusetts.
This attorney will be a part of multidisciplinary project teams and engage with colleagues at all levels of the organization to understand all aspects of the business to enable them to implement effective IP strategies for the portfolios they oversee, proactively solicit invention disclosures, and educate colleagues on Lantheus’ IP strategy, while actively participating in agreement negotiations and other transactional work.
This position is currently expected to work out of the Company’s Bedford, Massachusetts executive offices at least three days per week (typically Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) and as otherwise necessary.
Key Responsibilities:
Partnering with and advising all levels of the organization, identifying opportunities to expand and safeguard the Company’s intellectual property and managing and mitigating intellectual property risk within our growing portfolio, including:
- Strategically managing an intellectual property portfolio for both in-licensed and owned IP to maximize the value and utility of Lantheus’ assets worldwide, including:
- oversight of worldwide preparation of prosecution of patent and trademark applications,
- building the Company’s patent portfolio by meeting with inventors and collaborators and reviewing their submissions, coordinating invention mining and ideation sessions, and partnering with senior colleagues to develop and execute practices that drive a proactive, business-oriented patent program,
- managing patent applications throughout the patent lifecycle by working directly with the inventor community and outside patent prosecution counsel to ensure high-quality patent applications for strategically important inventions,
- coordinating with outside counsel and search providers to conduct patent landscape studies and synthesizing the results to facilitate actionable decisions by providing insights into the competitive landscape, technology trends and patent portfolios,
- formulating policies and guidelines for patent related issues, such as creating toolkits for non-IP attorneys and non-legal business clients, improving portfolio development processes, and encouraging patent-related practices consistent with the goals of Lantheus,
- Patentability, and freedom to operate assessments, patent searches and the development of opinions on validity, non-infringement, and patent avoidance of third-party patents and risk assessments, trade secret protection, and establishing a budget and managing outside counsel spend for all of the above.
- Developing a thorough understanding of Lantheus’ current and planned business strategies, activities, programs, competitors, and markets, keeping abreast of developing legal trends, laws, and regulations.
- Ensuring ongoing awareness of competitors’ products, activities, and IP portfolios and recommending proactive strategies to mitigate risk from competitor’s patent portfolios where appropriate.
- Supporting patent due diligence on strategic transactions
- Monitoring intellectual property law developments that may impact Lantheus’ patent practices.
- Working closely with Research & Development, Clinical Development, Business Development, Pharma Solutions, Digital Solutions (AI tools), Technical Operations and Commercial teams to proactively identify and assess invention disclosures, strategic IP acquisitions, and life cycle management opportunities, and educating and advising on important IP issues to advance IP/patent awareness.
- Conducting benchmarking activities for best practices in providing IP metrics to business teams and advise on the same.
- Contributing to and maintaining positive relationships with strategic external relationship counterparts.
- Reviewing proposed research papers, publications, presentations, press releases and other materials for any impact on patent rights.
- Providing timely, well-informed, “practical risk”-based advice and problem-solving skills to facilitate business decision-making in alignment with strategic objectives.
- Collaborating closely with the Vice President, Deputy General Counsel – Intellectual Property to identify opportunities for asserting intellectual property against infringers and identifying risks to Lantheus’ FTO, advising on opportunities to challenge competitor’s IP (for example, in post grant proceedings in the U.S. and Europe or during the prosecution phase such as third-party observations) and providing business focused plans and advice for any such actions.
Qualifications:
- Qualified U.S. attorney (JD) and a member in good standing of at least one state bar and registered US Patent Attorney in good standing with US Patent Bar.
- D., MS, or undergraduate degree in a relevant biological/biochemical science is required.
- 15+ years of relevant IP experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including litigation experience with in-house experience a plus.
- Advanced degree in a biological/biochemistry/chemistry is preferred.
- Direct experience in biologic and chemical composition patents.
- Experience counseling in-house business partners on complex intellectual property matters.
Professional Skills:
- High level of professionalism and integrity, sound judgement and a strong commitment to ethical conduct.
- Exceptionally strong communicator (both verbal and written), supportive interpersonal team player, talented at collaborating cross- functionally to communicate complex information to all levels within an organization and contribute positively to Lantheus’ culture.
- Must be comfortable participating in all aspects of intellectual property law including preparation and prosecution of patent applications and all aspects of IP portfolio management to meet budget.
- Motivated self-starter who is able to manage multiple complex projects independently.
- Practical problem solver with ability to recommend strategy, make data-informed decisions, make difficult decisions independently and confidently, and demonstrated capabilities in establishing business practices to manage legal and other risks.
Core Values:
The ideal candidate will embody Lantheus core values:
- Let people be their best
- Respect one another and act as one
- Learn, adapt, and win
- Know someone’s health is in our hands
- Own the solution and make it happen
Lantheus is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law. Lantheus is an E-Verify Employer in the United States.
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