22 August 2018Americas

LSIPR 50 2018: Brian Anderson

Name: Brian Anderson

Organisation: Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Position: Head of IP

Brian Anderson is Allergan’s assistant general counsel and in charge of the company’s global IP litigation.

Anderson assumed the role in 2016 and transitioned from generics to branded IP following Allergan’s divestiture of its generics division to Teva.

He has focused his career almost exclusively on patent issues involving life sciences, and predominantly the Hatch-Waxman Act. In addition to Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) and pharmaceutical patent litigation, his current role includes a significant docket of medical device, biosimilar and trademark infringement actions as well as challenges in the US Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office.

Anderson is one of the team members involved in litigation surrounding an inventive and widely-discussed transaction between Allergan and a Native American tribe. The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe acquired patents for dry eye treatment Restasis (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion) from Allergan in September last year and granted the pharmaceutical company an exclusive licence to the FDA-approved treatment.

The tribe sought to dismiss a series of inter partes reviews that had been initiated against the patents based on its tribal sovereign immunity, but, in February, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board held that the tribe is not entitled to assert tribal sovereign immunity in inter partes review proceedings. It also found that the proceedings could continue without the tribe’s participation, in view of Allergan remaining the “effective patent owner”.

Allergan and the tribe both appealed, and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will hear the dispute in June.

In addition to Restasis, Allergan’s major brands include Botox, Juvederm, Vraylar, Coolsculpting, Ozurdex and Linzess.

"IP protection plays a key role in Allergan’s open science model of research and development."

IP protection plays a key role in Allergan’s open science model of research and development, which defines its approach to “identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care”.

After graduating from DePaul University College of Law in 2003, Anderson began his career at law firms in Chicago representing generic and brand pharmaceutical companies in ANDA litigation. In 2008, he joined Watson Pharmaceuticals as in-house IP counsel.

Over the next several years, as Watson continued its acquisitive strategy and changed its name from Watson to Actavis to Allergan, Anderson took on roles of increasing responsibility. Then, three years ago, Anderson was appointed vice president, IP, global generics.