K&L Gates reinforces Boston IP offering

K&L Gates reinforces Boston IP offering

A US law firm with two partners and 10 lawyers, patent agents and tech specialists has opened a burgeoning centre for life sciences.

To expand its intellectual property and life sciences capabilities in the region, K&L Gates has hired a 12-person team from a Boston boutique.

Together with their 10-member team of lawyers, patent agents, and technology specialists, Hannah Koyfman and David Lu have joined Lando & Anastasi from Lando & Anastasi.

In their roles as partners, Koyfman and Lu will join a team of more than 100 lawyers and staff based in Boston and will become the firm's 57th and 58th partners, respectively.

As the chairman of the firm's Boston office, Mark Haddad said of the new hires: "This next generation of life sciences lawyers in performing cutting-edge work in the ever-growing biotechnology and pharmaceuticals fields, and we look forward to working with them to apply their unique skills to servicing our clients within the Boston region and globally."

In addition to its IP team in Portland, Orange County, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, K&L Gates has strategically been building its US-based IP network since the beginning of 2020. As part of its plans to open in Nashville, Tennessee last February, the firm hired 18 local firms' partners, including IP specialists.

As part of its global expansion, the company also launched its own trademark agency in China in February, allowing it to file and prosecute applications directly with China's intellectual property agency, the CNIPA.

The co-leader of K&L Gates' global IP practice, Bob Barrett, described Koyfman and Lu's expertise as "cutting-edge" and added that Koyfman and Lu's select clients would benefit from K&L Gates' global approach to IP.

She joined Lando & Anastasi in 2013 after five years as a patent agent at Ropes & Gray and was made a partner three years later. Koyfman holds a Ph.D. in cell biology from the University of California. From Fortune 500 firms to early-stage start-ups, she advises clients primarily in the biotech sector on patent prosecution, diligence, counseling, and litigation, as well as matters associated with a number of advanced technologies such as cell-based therapies, diagnostics, and medical devices.

Among Lu's recent accomplishments, the firm made him a partner in 2018 after four years as a patent attorney, after he joined the firm in 2008 as a technology specialist and patent agent from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship, where he studied the molecular mechanisms underpinning ovarian and breast cancer and their impact on the development of cancer therapies for the future.

As an IP specialist, he concentrates on the prosecution of patents, IP counseling, and due diligence for the life sciences industry, with clients that range from international corporations to large biotech companies, to venture capital-funded start-ups. His expertise encompasses cancer therapies, genomic technologies, gene therapies, antibody drugs, and medical devices, among others.

In addition to Koyfman and Lu, K&L Gates IP practice has more than 200 attorneys and professionals, including more than 100 registered patent lawyers, agents, and technology specialists. During the last two years, Koyfman and Lu have been joined by over 110 new partners at the firm, said a statement from K&L Gates.

Life sciences are a growing industry in Boston, and the city has attracted international firms in recent years, including Allen & Overy, which opened a Boston office last month with a team of life sciences business litigators from Goodwin Procter.

In April 2012, the firm also managed to establish a presence in Boston when it hired three patent attorneys from Burns & Levinson from the top 30 firms in the United Kingdom. Similarly, Barnes & Thornburg, a US law firm, undertook the hiring of a quartet of patent attorneys from Nutter McClennen & Fish for the launch in Boston, the 20th office of the firm across the nation.