2023 Speakers
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
