Job description

About Us
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) is radically changing the way cancer research is done. Founded in 2016 through a $250 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean Parker, the San Francisco-based nonprofit is an unprecedented collaboration between the country’s leading immunotherapy researchers and cancer centers, including Stanford Medicine, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania, the Gladstone Institute and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. PICI also supports top researchers at other cancer research institutions, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, City of Hope, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at MountSinai, Institute for Systems Biology and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
By forging alliances with academic, industry, and nonprofit partners, PICI makes big bets on bold research to fulfill its mission: to accelerate the development of breakthrough immune therapies to turn all cancers into curable diseases.
Help us create a world that doesn’t fear cancer. Join us. www.parkerici.org
Overview of the Role
The Senior Director, Intellectual Property (SD/IP) plays a pivotal role in the development, management and ultimate commercialization of intellectual property developed across the consortium of research institutions and within PICI. PICI is investing in the full spectrum of cancer immunotherapy research (“Field”) spanning basic discovery, translational research, technology development and clinical trials, including patentable discoveries. Furthermore, PICI and its researchers will benefit from a broad research license to all IP in the field of immune oncology developed by affiliated researchers across all of its partner centers.
The SD/IP will work closely with the Legal/IP and Business Development internal teams and collaboratively with the Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) at each affiliated research institution, including the PICI Site IP Manager and the TTO contacts, to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to manage the full life cycle of this patent portfolio. The SD/IP will also work closely with the General Counsel, Chief Business Officer, and various members of the Executive Leadership Team to structure and negotiate the terms of various PICI agreements, including sponsored research agreements, IP licensing agreements, drug supply agreements, and the like.
Reporting Structure and Team
The Senior Director, Intellectual Property reports to the General Counsel and is a key member of the Legal team. The SD/IP works in close collaboration with the Director of IP & Licensing, cross-functionally at PICI, and with PICI affiliated sites.
FLSA Status: Exempt
Essential Job Functions

• Patent Strategy. Work closely with members of the PICI Executive Leadership, General Counsel, Chief Scientific Officer, Chief Business Officer, and PICI IP Team, the Site IP Leads, and each site’s member researchers to identify patent eligible inventions in development across the Institute and its collective research portfolio. This process will encompass patent searching, freedom-to-operate and patentability assessments.

• Patent Development. Work with PICI scientific leadership, the PICI IP Team, and the Site IP Leads to identify potentially patentable discoveries made in the Field within PICI-affiliated researchers’ labs. This will include reviewing draft manuscripts and invention disclosures submitted to the PICI IP Team, as well as PICI funded project reports submitted to the PICI Grants Team, to identify patent-eligible inventions. As a key part of the PICI IP team, the SD/IP will perform and/or manage prior art reviews, pre-filing patentability searching, and work with outside counsel to optimize patent scope and maximize the chances of each patent application proceeding to issue with commercially relevant claims.

• Patent Management and Protection. Work in consultation with site personnel and outside counsel, as appropriate, to coordinate filing and prosecution strategy, including international patent filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty and direct national filings, as applicable. This will include reviewing draft provisional and PCT applications and advising outside counsel on proposed claiming strategies for IP developed at PICI’s affiliated sites and by PICI employees. This will also include reviewing and providing input on search reports, Office Actions, and other communications from the USPTO and other national patent offices. In close collaboration with IP Team and outside counsel, SD/IP ensures overall patent management and maintenance costs of the Portfolio are kept under control and within budget.

• Licensing and Business Development. Work closely with the Chief Business Officer, Director of IP & Licensing, and General Counsel as needed on in-licensing, out-licensing projects, IP sales, spin-outs, co-development deals, research collaborations, sponsored research agreements, and other technology transfer strategies, including performing due diligence (especially IP due diligence), reviewing and/or negotiating contracts, prior art review and market/commercial intelligence. The SD/IP will participate in regular meetings of the PICI TTC or site-specific TTC, charged with collaboratively managing the PICI patent estate.

• Coordination with the Site IP Teams. Develop and maintain strong relationships with each of the site’s Site IP Manager. Additionally, support other PICI staff on IP-related issues, and occasionally represent PICI on IP matters to other organizations and agencies.

• Internal IP, Technology and Data Sharing. All PICI researchers benefit from a broad research license to any IP from any of PICI’s affiliated sites. To implement these rights, Material Transfer Agreements, Data Use Agreements, and other agreements may be needed within the network to document and manage the research uses of different groups’ IP. The SD/IP will work with the sites, and the General Counsel, Chief Business Officer to develop, implement, and manage an effective process to ensure access to and appropriate use of all intellectual property within the gambit of this broad research license.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

• Experienced life sciences intellectual property and registered patent attorney with 8 or more years in biopharmaceutical or large pharma industry. Ph.D. in the life sciences is highly preferred.
• Law firm experience with patent drafting, prosecution and/or litigation is highly preferred.

• Expertise in oncology, immunology, and/or other relevant scientific areas

• Experience developing and managing a complex, high value life sciences patent portfolio, ideally with experience across the full patent life cycle, including at the early stages of patent drafting, prosecution and protection, especially in the areas of large molecule biologics, cell therapy, and genetically engineered cells.

• Highly effective collaborator, with experience managing inter-institutional efforts, and comfort in leadership roles involving both direct reports and outside collaborators.

• Comfortable working autonomously on complex projects with a demonstrated capability to independently identify and solve high stakes problems.

• Confident, innovative, influential leader, with strong interpersonal skills.

• Motivated by PICI’s mission to turn cancer into a curable disease.

• Experience with technology transactions, including licensing, materials transfer, sponsored research, and other types of collaboration agreements is also desirable.

Flexible work from home options available.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: $240,000.00 - $275,000.00 per year

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