Patent Policy in Genomics and Human Genetics: A
Public Health Perspective
Workshop
9:00–5:10, Wednesday 11 February 2015
Venue: Haldane Room, Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford
Biographies
Julian Cockbain
Julian Cockbain is a Consultant European Patent Attorney based in Gent, Belgium and
Oxford, UK. After taking a degree and a doctorate in chemistry at Oxford University, he
joined the patent and trademark attorney firm Dehns in London in 1979, qualifying as a UK
patent attorney in 1983 and as a European Patent Attorney in 1984. He was appointed partner
at Dehns in 1985, a position he held until becoming a consultant in 2012. During his work as
a patent attorney he wrote and prosecuted several hundred patent applications and represented
his clients numerous times before the UK, European and US patent offices. He has written
numerous articles on patent-related matters, and in 2012 a book on exclusions from
patentability (co-authored with Prof. Sigrid Sterckx of Gent University) was published by
Cambridge University Press
Ingrid Schneider
Prof. Dr. Ingrid Schneider is professor in Political Science and Senior Researcher at the
Research Centre on Biotechnology, Society, and the Environment (BIOGUM) at the
University of Hamburg. She earned her academic qualification for professorship in the
political sciences with her habilitation thesis on “The European Patent System - Shifts in
Governance by Parliaments and Civil Society” (2010).
In 2014 she was a guest professor for Political Science of the University of Vienna. Ingrid
Schneider has written extensively on intellectual property rights, technology assessment, and
regulation. In 2013 she was appointed as member of the European Commission's "expert
group on the development and implications of patent law in the field of biotechnology and
genetic engineering".
Schneider is a board member of the EPIP Association (European Policy for Intellectual
Property) (EPIP) (from 2010) and a member of the Advisory Board of the German Federal
Agency for Civic Education (bpb) (from 2010). She has served as advisor for the German,
Austrian, and Swiss Parliaments and for the European Parliament on various topics. She was
a member of the Standing Advisory Committee before the European Patent Office (SACEPO,
2009-2011).
Stuart Hogarth
Stuart Hogarth is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Science, Health and
Medicine at King’s College London. Funded by the Welcome Trust, his current research is a
comparative study of the impact of biomarker patenting on the development and diffusion of
HPV testing in the USA, UK and India. Stuart’s primary research interest is the political
economy of diagnostic innovation and his work combines empirical research with normative
analysis of public policy and commercial strategy. Much of his work has focused on
understanding the emergent socio-technical regime of personalised medicine, and he has a
particular in the regulatory framework for molecular diagnostics and in the role of biomarker
patents in diagnostic innovation. He has produced policy reports and briefings on these topics
for Health Canada, the European Commission and the Human Genetics Commission (HGC).
Michael Hopkins
Dr. Michael Hopkins is Senior Lecturer and Director of Research at the Science Policy
Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. After training as a biologist, Michael
worked in the biotech industry, selling DNA sequencing reagents - a market where IP
infringement was an obvious feature. Michael moved into academic research at SPRU. His
DPhil thesis described innovation processes within the "hidden research system" of NHS
genetic testing laboratories, where new diagnostic services were rapidly produced with little
hindrance in contrast to private sector-led diagnostic innovation which was largely absent,
underdeveloped or even opposed. Subsequent research interests have included the study of
trends in the patenting of human DNA, the development of pharmacogenetic testing, the
financing of biotech firms (and the consequences of a lack of public market investment), the
evolution of bioscience innovation eco-systems and more recently the development of
scientometric techniques to map the emergence of technologies.
Igrid Sterkcx
Sigrid Sterckx is Professor of Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy at Ghent University
in Belgium. Her current research interests include patents (especially in biomedicine and
biotechnology), global justice, climate change, and various topics in medical ethics. She
serves on various committees, including the Belgian National Advisory Committee on
Bioethics.
Mark Bale PhD
Mark Bale leads on a number of key emerging healthcare science areas and their ethical, legal
and policy implications, with a particular emphasis on genomics and regenerative medicine.
He is also Head of Profession for Scientists and Engineers and Deputy to the Chief Scientific
Adviser, Dame Sally Davies. His current priorities are supporting the delivery of the Prime
Minister’s 100K genomes initiative, the Regenerative Medicine Expert Group and the UK
Rare Diseases Strategy. The wider Division’s priorities include embryology and assisted
conception, human organs and tissue, screening and early diagnosis, sexual health, rare
diseases and regenerative medicine. It also has responsibility for the several arms-length
organisations including NHS Blood and Transplant, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology
Authority and the Human Tissue Authority.
He also represents the UK on bioethics and biotechnology at the Council of Europe and
OECD. He is the Chair of the Bioethics subcommittee of the Council of Europe’s Human
Rights Committee. Mark has a research background in microbial genetics and joined the
Department of Health in 1999 after working on the occupational safety of GMOs and
pathogens.
Adam Stoten
Adam is responsible for management of all medical/life science out-licensing and new
venture formation activities at Isis Innovation Ltd, the technology transfer company of the
University of Oxford. He has worked for more than a decade in the pharma/biotech sector in
commercial roles encompassing business development and licensing, new venture formation,
product development, lobbying/advocacy and general management.
Between 2010 and 2013 Adam worked as Deputy General Manager for the Oxford-Emergent
Tuberculosis Consortium Ltd, a joint venture between the University of Oxford and
Emergent BioSolutions Inc, which conducted the first ever efficacy study of a next generation
TB vaccine in infants. Prior to this Adam worked in healthcare consulting with Technomark
Ltd and then in increasingly senior commercialisation roles at Isis.
Harry Thangaraj
Harry began his career as a physician treating leprosy patients in Nepal (The Leprosy Mission
International). Subsequently he switched to researching Mycobacterial diseases (immunology
and bacteriology) for several years as a postdoctoral scientist in the UK. He trained in
intellectual property (IP) law in 2004/5 (winner of the GSK prize in patent law, Queen Mary
University London).
Following that he worked for an Oxford-based NGO (MIHR) researching ways to make
health technologies accessible and affordable to the poor in developing countries through
creative and ethical management of IP. At St. George’s University of London (2009-2013) he
led an EU FP7 funded international research consortium that researched similar issues.
He is currently actively involved with SGUL teams developing global health teaching at
SGUL. He also works as a consultant on global health through his company, established in
2013 (R4Research Limited)
Javier Lezaun
Javier Lezaun is James Martin Lecturer in Science and Technology Governance at the
University of Oxford. For the past four years, he has directed BioProperty, a research
programme funded by the European Research Council to explore the future of property rights
in biomedical research. He is currently conducting an in-depth study of the changes in
antimalarial drug discovery and global health R&D since the turn of the century. He is
Deputy Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, and an Academic
Member of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre.
Wenhwa Lee
Wen Hwa Lee, BSc MSc PhD is the Programme Director of the Disease Foundations
Network, Strategic Alliances at the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), University of
Oxford. His training included Biology, Molecular and Structural Biology, Protein
Crystallography, Computational Biology and Drug Discovery, gathered in diverse places
such as Brazil (UNICAMP and LNLS), US (Scripps) and France (Paris V).
Lee joined the SGC in 2004 and has been involved in the planning of scientific strategies,
communications, collaborations and alliances with external collaborators. Lee has been
working with international institutions and government agencies to facilitate the exchange of
expertise and establishment of joint research programmes with SGC’s international partners,
including charities, universities and pharmaceutical companies.
Most recently, Lee led the establishment of a new SGC laboratory in Brazil focused on novel
kinases and is now focused on new partnerships with patient and disease foundations to
bridge the basic science to patient-driven drug discovery efforts.
Graham Dutfield
Graham Dutfield is a law professor at the University of Leeds. He is Director of the LLM in
Intellectual Property Law, and of the Research Group on Emerging Technologies in Law and
Society. He was elected as the Vice Chairperson of the Specialty Committee of Research on
Traditional Knowledge, World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies for the period 201317.
Dutfield is also a member of the Expert Advisory Group for the Australian Centre for
Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA), which is based at Griffith University and The
Australian National University. From 2010-14 he was Scientific Advisory Board member of
a Canadian synthetic biology project: PhytoMetaSyn. He has published numerous articles and
several books including Intellectual Property Rights and the Life Science Industries: Past,
Present and Future.