If there is one thing that biopharma agrees on, it is that drug patents move markets. With billions in shareholder value turning on a single obscure court decision, patent litigation is the embodiment of what risk means in this industry – just ask Pfizer Inc.’s chief IP counsel and senior vice president Roy F. Waldron, PhD. The 54-year-old New York University law graduate with a chemistry PhD from Yale University is responsible for managing one of the industry’s largest intellectual property portfolios, consisting of tens of thousands of patents and trademarks covering technologies from traditional small molecules to advanced biologics, vaccines and diagnostics. He is also one of the lead strategists on industry-wide advocacy for IP protection and enforcement, serving concurrently as head of the Executive Committee of INTERPAT, the IP coordinating body of R&D companies, and as chair of the International IP and Trade Committee of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), which represents R&D-based industry associations in 41 countries.
In a conversation with In Vivo, Waldron looks at the year ahead and highlights several big pluses – and not...