Senior Patent Manager

Mission

Generate, prosecute and defend patents protecting Almirall’s products and projects, including in-licensed patents, and contribute to the definition and implementation of the company’s strategy of Intellectual Property, including patents and trade marks.

Function, tasks and responsibilities

• Manage a worldwide portfolio of patents protecting a significant portion of Almirall’s products and projects in around 80 countries in the chemical, biological and technological fields in an independent and autonomous way.
• Set up mechanisms for the detection of generics of the products in his/her portfolio and participate in the corresponding litigations, in collaboration with external patent counsel in order to maintain market exclusivity.
• Supervise and coach administrative staff and more junior Patent Management Specialists and delegate tasks in them.
• Interact directly with international patent offices.
• Provide strategic advice, assessments and training to R&D departments and teams, resulting in the detection of inventions, the filing of patent and the assurance of freedom-to operate.
• Elaborate due diligence reports on the patent situation of Business Development (BD) projects, present them to R&D management and make recommendations on the feasibility of the BD project from the patent point of view.
• Propose and implement improvements in the policies and procedures of the IP Department.
• Manage a yearly budget to address the payment of patent office fees and attorney costs.
• Review patent provisions of contracts and agreements with new business and R&D partners, participate in the negotiations and permanently interact with the partners on Intellectual Property matters once the agreements are in place.
• Control periodically the dates of loss-of exclusivity (LoE) of the products in his/her portfolio and generate opportunities for life-cycle management and extension of market exclusivity
• Carry out watch and surveillance searches of third party’s patents and elaborate reports of patent intelligence for R&D teams.

Education

• A degree in Chemical, Biological or Biomedical Sciences (Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, Biotechnology, Pharmacy, Medicine, …)
• A Ph degree or a degree in two of the disciplines above

Experience

• An experience of at least five years as Patent Specialist in pharmaceutical patents

Specific knowledge

• Internationally acknowledged deep expert knowledge in patents, i.e. full qualification as European Patent Attorney, having passed the European Qualifying Examination, or, alternatively, at least five years of experience as patent examiner at the European, US or an equivalent patent office.
• Expert knowledge and experience in international patent litigation and trade mark systems
• Expert knowledge of drug research and development in the chemical and biological fields
• Familiarity with specialised information sources, ability to search in on-line bibliographic databases in patents, chemistry, biology and medicine and to carry out due diligences on patentability and freedom-to-operate
• Fluency in Spanish and English and good working knowledge of another language

Competencies

• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Intrinsic motivation
• Team work
• Proactivity
• Problem-solving skills

Values and competences

• Care 
• Courage
• Simplicity
• Innovation