Gain firsthand insight into how judges from the PTAB and federal courts in key jurisdictions are approaching pharmaceutical and biotech patent disputes. This session offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from the decision-makers on litigation strategy, evidentiary expectations, and what most influences outcomes in complex patent cases.
In light of recent changes in PTAB practice under new USPTO Director John A. Squires, in-house teams are reassessing disclosure risk, IPR exposure, and long-term enforceability, particularly for manufacturing processes, algorithms, and data-driven know-how. This session focuses on how companies are making these calls in practice, and how patent strategy is directly shaping trade secret risk in later disputes.
Damon Gupta is a Director, Patent Counsel at Spark Therapeutics, Inc., a leader in gene therapy and member of the Roche Group. With over a decade of experience in intellectual property (IP) law and a background in molecular biology, Damon advises biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies on patent strategy, IP transactions, and risk mitigation. At Spark, Damon leads efforts to protect proprietary assets, including trade secrets, manage IP disputes, and provides IP support to cross-functional teams, including R&D, manufacturing, and corporate transactions. Damon holds a J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law, an M.S. from Baylor College of Medicine, and a B.S. from The Ohio State University.
Recent court decisions in Skinny Label cases show that liability increasingly focuses on post-launch conduct and real-world use, not label text alone. A panel of leading in-house counsel and litigators with innovative, biosimilar, and regulatory perspectives will address shifting litigation strategy.
Sanjaya Mendis is a partner and life sciences IP litigator at McCarthy Tétrault LLP based in Toronto, Canada. The IP Litigation group is ranked Band 1 in Chambers and recently received the Patent Litigation Firm of the Year by LMG Life Sciences. Sanjaya handles complex cross-border contentious patent disputes and has represented clients in all levels of Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court. Sanjaya’s recent notable experience includes: Regeneron/Bayer (aflibercept); AbbVie (adalimumab); Merck (sitagliptin); and BMS/Pfizer (apixaban).
Artificial intelligence is transforming the trade secret threat landscape. As companies deploy internal AI tools, enterprise search, co-pilots, and agentic systems, the risks posed are increasingly subtle, scalable, and harder-to-detect. Employees can extract and synthesise sensitive information without direct access to underlying repositories, and at a speed and scale that outpaces many legacy legal technical and compliance controls. This session will examine the risks posed by internal use of artificial intelligence, consider how AI is changing the mechanics of trade secret misappropriation, and question how legal, technical, and governance frameworks must evolve in response.
Senior executive with deep experience in environmental markets, capital markets, financial technology, blockchain, digital supply chains, and food traceability. Specializes in corporate development, revenue strategy, commercial growth, and scaling technology solutions across global industries, with a strong track record in sales leadership, partner engagement, and investor support.
This session brings together senior in-house patent litigators involved in some of the most influential recent pharma and biotech cases, to examine how life sciences litigation strategy is shifting and what in-house teams should be preparing for next.
