Claire specialises in advising clients on transactions that involve the development and commercialisation of IP rights, and on the commercial and IP aspects of corporate and investment deals. She has over 22 years’ experience working with a wide variety of clients (from start-ups, SMEs and investors, through to large multinationals) across a range of industries, in particular those in the life sciences sector.

Examples of Claire’s experience include advising:

• clients of all types on an extensive range of collaboration, option and licensing deals (including in-licensing and out-licensing transactions) with industry and academic partners. These span a wide spectrum of modalities from small molecules and biologics through to advanced therapies – including next generation biologics such as multi-specific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates, and cell and gene therapies;
• leading pharmaceutical companies on acquisitions and disposals of rights in medicinal products and the sale of manufacturing and packaging facilities, including related supply arrangements;
• pharmaceutical and biotech companies on a variety of agreements in the field of precision medicine, including collaborations in relation to genomics research, biomarker discovery, the development of algorithms to aid patient selection, and the development and commercialisation of companion diagnostics;
• biotech companies on clinical collaborations with global pharma for the trialling of combination therapies;
• spin-out licences from academic and research institutions, including advising a specialist investor and its portfolio company in relation to the licensing of AI and next-generation genetic tools, tumour models and data sets from a world leading research institute, to enable the company to discover new disease targets, novel drugs and novel combinations of existing drugs;
• drug sponsors on the full suite of clinical trial arrangements, including contracts with CROs, trial sites and other parties, and agreements with academic organisations in respect of investigator-initiated studies;
• SMEs and international organisations on manufacturing and supply agreements extending across the whole supply chain, including arrangements with CMOs and CDMOs for process and formulation development, and for the procurement of API, excipients and drug product and other manufacturing services (including in relation to cell therapies); and
• global pharmaceutical companies on logistics and distribution agreements, including clients seeking to move to a reduced wholesale model.

Before becoming a lawyer, Claire spent a number of years working for Abbott Laboratories’ medical device business, in quality assurance and operational roles. Since being at Bristows, Claire has also spent time seconded to the in-house legal team of a leading global pharmaceutical company.

Claire regularly speaks on a variety of topics, such as negotiating licensing agreements, trends in AI drug discovery deals, cell and gene therapy deal-making and issues in clinical trial agreements.

She is also a member of the UK BioIndustry Association’s (BIA’s) Intellectual Property Advisory Committee, and chairs their sub-committee on IP policy in relation to AI & Data.