Our network
All of our events are only possible because of our network of speakers, advisors, partners and attendees who continue to help develop and inform our series, ensuring that we remain the industry's most premier and relevant innovation series.
Read more about the Kisaco Research Legal community below
Legal Advisory Board
The Legal Advisory Board is a prestigious group of individuals with extensive experience in the legal industry. This group is responsible for guiding the production and development of the Kisaco Research Legal events.
For enquiries please email [email protected]
Karine Crepin
Karine Crepin is the Vice President, Head of Vaccines Patents at GSK. She holds a Master Degree in Bioengineering (specialising in Biochemistry) and a PhD in molecular Biology. She is also a qualified European and Belgian Patent Attorney.
Before re-joining GSK in her current role, she worked for more than 9 years at Sanofi where she built a global team of more than 40 patent attorneys worldwide responsible for all patent matters relating to Sanofi Biologics including Vaccines and platform aspects, and before that for 15 years at GSK vaccines where she started her patent career.
Karine coordinates a large variety of patent related activities, from the protection of innovation to freedom-to-operate and post-grant administrative and judicial proceedings.
Lorenz Kallenbach
Lorenz Kallenbach is a senior corporate patent counsel in the healthcare division of Merck KGaA. He is responsible for defining and executing the IP strategy for innovator projects. Including the assessment of the IP landscape, coordination of worldwide patent litigation, and portfolio development.
Before joining Merck, Lorenz worked in private practice. He is qualified as a German and European patent attorney.
Lorenz studied biochemistry and received a Ph.D. in the field of epigenetics.
Stephan Kutik
Mathilde Rauline
Mathilde is a European patent attorney, is qualified as a French patent attorney, and is admitted to the Paris bar.
She is head of Greater Europe patent litigation at Sanofi, after having been a patent litigator in private practice (mostly in the pharmaceutical field), and a patent attorney in the industry (Sanofi, Nestlé).
She has extensive experience in pharmaceutical and life-science patent litigation in France, at the EPO, in Europe, and in Eurasia.
Her expertise also comprises contractual matters, settlements, regulatory aspects, and the SPC regulation.
Featured Speakers
Insight into the market dynamics that are having the greatest impact on an industry is what drives our business and its this understanding that allows us to identify and secure the thought leaders who have a true 'vision' to offer.
Dominic Adair
Rainer Becker
Sven Bostyn
Robert Cerwinski
Rob Cerwinski, managing partner, is a seasoned patent litigator and IP strategist with 20+ years of experience at premier U.S. law firms helping international clients launch biopharma products into the highly-competitive U.S. market. Mr. Cerwinski specializes in helping companies devise cost-effective strategies to navigate the complex and intertwined legal, regulatory and financial hurdles that can delay or prevent product launch. His successes in pre-litigation strategy and in the courtroom have driven the launch of 20+ biopharma products in the U.S. and Europe. Mr. Cerwinski holds a Master of Science Degree in molecular biology and has a deep understanding of the science, business and regulation of biopharma product development, manufacture and marketing. Mr. Cerwinski co-founded the industry-leading biosimilars practice at Goodwin Procter LLP and is a recognized global authority on biosimilars. He is Senior Editor of the leading legal treatise in the field, Guide to Biosimilars Litigation and Regulation in the U.S. (published by Thomson-Reuters) and founded Goodwin’s award-winning biosimilars blog, Big Molecule Watch and its companion blog, Big Molecule Watch China. Mr. Cerwinski was named an IAM Global Leader in Intellectual Property Law in 2021 and is ranked in the Gold Tier of the IAM Patent 1000.
Liz Cohen
Katie Coltart
Mike Cottler
Jenny Davies
Jenny Davies is a life sciences and patent specialist with a Masters in Biochemistry from Oxford. She provides strategic advice to help clients protect and exploit their R&D investment in the life sciences sector, medical device sector and the chemical industry. Her work regularly entails negotiating agreements to support her clients' research, development, manufacture and commercialisation, and protect their markets through the enforcement of patents.
Jenny delivers business-focused solutions across her unique practice area spanning patents and dispute resolution, transactions ranging from strategic licensing to highly complex collaborations and regulatory matters. She advises clients in all aspects of patent enforcement, from technical analysis and global strategy to leading UK litigation and EPO oppositions.
Given the commercial and practical value of the assets Jenny protects, her approach combines precision and detail with a commercial mindset and sector-led solutions. Clients praise her "endless determination", "formidable intellect" and are "deeply impressed" with her "unusual capacity to think creatively".
Her work highlights include leading ground-breaking patent litigation up to the UK Court of Appeal to achieve a novel form of "Arrow declaration" for Fujifilm Kyowa Kirin and advising AstraZeneca across a range of high value and complex transactions: its collaboration with the University of Oxford (COVID-19 vaccine); two $6 billion oncology collaborations with Daiichi Sankyo; an $8.5 billion oncology deal with Merck; and a $300 million oncology deal with Genzyme (Caprelsa).
Jenny is a member of the BioIndustry Association's IP Advisory Committee, and SPC and exclusivities committee, and a regular speaker on patent litigation and strategy.
Robin Ellis
Jules Fabre
Katherine A. Helm
Katherine A. ("Kassie") Helm, Ph.D., is a first-chair counsel who represents leading innovator pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in patent litigation and patent-adjacent litigation matters. Her doctorate in neuroscience allows her to leverage her scientific background alongside her legal acumen to develop and execute winning positions for life sciences companies in all phases of district court litigation and Federal Circuit and other circuit court appeals, and before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She has prevailed in high-stakes cases representing life sciences companies as both plaintiff and defendant in patent infringement actions and as both petitioner and patent owner in Post Grant Reviews (PGRs) and Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) at the PTAB, as well as in interferences and appeals. Dr. Helm is fluent in French and frequently involved in patent disputes with multijurisdictional aspects, including post-issuance patent proceedings around the globe. She regularly plays a leading role in coordinated global patent disputes involving co-pending ex-U.S. proceedings involving biologic therapeutics in the European national courts in patent revocation, nullity and infringement actions, as well as in opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office (EPO) and on appeal before the Technical Boards. Dr. Helm and her team have also been successful in utilizing U.S. discovery mechanisms under 28 USC § 1782 to assist with foreign patent litigations and EPO proceedings.
Dr. Helm is a founder of the New York chapter of ChIPs (Chiefs of Intellectual Property), a global nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing and connecting women in law, technology and regulatory policy. She is also a founder of the Lead Counsel Summit, a forthcoming force in the industry for female lead trial counsel. Dr. Helm currently serves as a Vice Chair on the Federal Circuit Bar Association’s Bench & Bar Planning Committee. In 2021, Dr. Helm was individually recognized as a winner of Dechert’s Samuel E. Klein Pro Bono Awards, for her work on behalf of military veterans before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In 2023, Dr. Helm was appointed Vice Chair of the Patent Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL) for the 2023-2024 bar year and appointed to the ABA-IPL’s Task Force on Improving the Durability and Reliability of the Patent Right for the same period. Dr. Helm has been recognized by numerous publications for her expertise, including by IAM Patent 1000, where in 2023, she was described as someone who “excels in biologics litigation and is a go-to for some of the industry’s major players to handle their most important disputes.”
Matt Hervey
Sir Robin Jacob
Lindsey Kent
Stephan Kutik
Daan De Lange
Alexander de Leeuw
Alexander de Leeuw is an experienced lawyer specialising in national and international patent litigation.
He frequently litigates before the Dutch courts as well as the European Patent Office. Some examples of cases that Alexander worked on concern CRISPR-Cas9 (Broad/MIT/Harvard), pemetrexed (Sandoz), lithography machines (Carl Zeiss), and surgical laser systems (Alcon).
He also regularly deals with and teaches about the protection of trade secrets, and has been involved in high-profile international trade secret litigation.
Tessa M. Malamud-Cohen
Patrick Mccutcheon
Ewan Nettleton
Jason Rice
Roberto Romandini
Roberto Romandini obtained his law degree from the University of Pisa and his LL.M. degree from the University of Munich, where he specialized in patent law. He completed his Ph.D. thesis on the patentability of human stem cells at the Max Planck Institute in Munich before practicing IP law at a leading IP law firm in Milan for 5 years. From 2013 he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich. Since 2019 he has been a legal member at the Boards of Appeal at the EPO.
Jon Singer
Craig Svoboda
Otto Swens
Cecile Teles
Cecile is Head Patent Attorney at Zentiva. She has over a decade of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
Cecile is uniquely experienced and knowledgeable in the pharma space as she has experience in-house at an elite innovator company (Sanofi), biologics (Merck Serono), and extensive generic experience she gained as Zentiva.
Cecile is an enthusiastic manager of her team and was a key member of the IP team in leading the transformation of Zentiva into an independent and competitive generic company after divestment from Sanofi.
Cecile is a qualified European Patent Attorney. She also holds a certificate from CEIPI in patent litigation and most recently completed her diploma as a Master of Laws in France.
Akif Mert
Akif Mert is a German lawyer specialising in white-collar crime with more than 10 years of international experience in managing legal, corporate compliance, and data privacy matters in both emerging and highly regulated markets.
He has spent many years in Singapore as the Regional Head of Compliance and DPO of Allianz Asia Pacific before moving to Switzerland in 2020 to assume the role of the Chief Compliance Officer of the Allianz Suisse Group.
Akif is an active member of the German Institute for Compliance and a regular author of publications about digital trends in compliance.
Daniel Gysel
Lora Von Ploetz
Lora von Ploetz is Head of Global Financial Crime Unit at Commerzbank AG, where she is overseeing the cross-border evaluation of significant financial crime events by, tracking, investigating, analysing, and reporting such and is responsible for the information sharing of significant financial threats across the group.
Before taking this position, Lora von Ploetz was Senior Sanctions Officer overseeing New York, London, and Dubai sanctions operations, correspondent banking special investigations among others.
Before joining Commerzbank AG she has held various compliance and legal management roles in Geneva, Moscow, and Sofia.
She holds an LL.M Law and Finance from the Goethe University in Frankfurt and a Master of Law degree.
Paolo Basarri
Raimund Roehrich
Robert Fairless
Sandra Middel
Yuet Ming Tham
German Florez-Villegas
Alexander Ghazvinian
Jennifer Toivola
Jennifer Toivola holds a Master’s degree in law as well as in business administration from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and is a Swiss Certified Accountant.
Jennifer has worked for many years as a regulatory consultant at KPMG. There she was consulting mainly Swiss Banks on matters related to AML, Compliance, and regulatory requirements.
Since September 2021 Jennifer is the Chief Compliance Officer of Banco Santander International SA.
Strategic Partners
From the market-leading law firms to legal media outlets, our partners continue to play a pivotal role in how we help professionals in the legal field. For more information on how to become a strategic partner, please visit our Marketing Solutions page
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