Co-Chairs

Christine Bellon

Chief Legal Officer
Beam Therapeutics, Inc

Sharick Naqi

Director & Senior Counsel
Global IP Lead – Gene Therapies
Novartis Gene Therapies

Government Speakers

Anne Gussow

Supervisory Patent Examiner, Quality Assurance Specialist
USPTO

Karlheinz Skowronek

Supervisory Patent Examiner, Bioinformatics
USPTO

Julia Tierney

Chief of Staff
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Julie Wu

Supervisory Patent Examiner, Immunotherapy and Recombinant Antibodies
USPTO

Associations

Kendalle Burlin O’Connell, Esq.

President and CEO
MassBio

Academia

Jared Auclair

Vice Provost Research Economic Development
Director of Bioinnovation
Northeastern University

John Haugen

Associate General Counsel Office of General Counsel / Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO)
Northwestern University

Deborah Cho

Attorney
Hogan Lovells
(Former Associate Chief Counsel, FDA)

Jason Bablak

Vice President, Regulatory Science, U.S.
Orchard Therapeutics

In-House Counsel

Cambria Alpha-Cobb

IP Counsel
Akouos

David Diamond

VP & Head of IP
Capstan Therapeutics

Deborah Hursh

Principal
Hursh Cell Therapy Consulting, LLC
(Former Senior Investigator, CMC Reviewer, CBER of FDA)

Kelly Morgan

VP, Head of IP and Legal
Arbor Biotechnologies, Inc.

Ken Nesmith

CBO, Oncology
Lunit

Aaron Pereira

Senior Director of Patents
Ferring Pharmaceuticals

Patrick Perry

Principal
Artesia Advisors LLC

Rana Sawaya

Sr. Director, Cell & Gene Therapies Patent Lead
BioNTech SE

Squire Servance

Founder & Managing Partner
Syridex Bio

Chuck Sholtz

Vice President, IP
Nutcracker Therapeutics

Todd Spalding

SVP, Deputy General Counsel
Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease

Outside Counsel

Catherine A. Brandon

Partner
Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP

Thomas S. Brennan

Partner
ArentFox Schiff LLP

Laurie A. Burlingame

Partner
Goodwin Procter LLP

Jonathan S. Caplan

Partner
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Kevin A. O’Connor, PhD

Partner
Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP

Eldora L. Ellison

Director
Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

Ryan Hagglund

Partner
Loeb & Loeb LLP

Michael B. Harlin

Partner
Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP

David Kim

Counsel
Gemini Law

Dan Liu

Attorney
Loeb & Loeb LLP

Mercedes K. Meyer

Attorney
Banner Witcoff

Brian W. Nolan

Partner
Mayer Brown LLP

Kevin E. Noonan

Partner
McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

William B. Raich

Partner
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP

Lauren Pignataro Rakitin

Partner
Covington & Burling LLP

Charles G. Raver

Attorney
Hyman, Phelps & McNamara PC

Irena Royzman

Partner
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Rebecca K. Wood

Partner
Sidley Austin LLP
(Former Chief Counsel, FDA)