10 November 2017Americas

LSIPR 50 2017: Mike Young

Name: Mike Young

Organisation: Roche Diagnostics

Position: Vice president and chief IP counsel

This is the second year Mike Young has been nominated for LSIPR 50—demonstrating his success and experience in the life sciences field.

After graduating from Purdue University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in science, he worked from 1978 to 1986 as a research chemist in medical diagnostics and then in the pharmaceutical industry from 1986 to 1988.

He began his career as a lawyer in 1988 when he worked at Faegre Baker Daniels (formerly Baker & Daniels).

In 1990 he joined Boehringer Mannheim as assistant patent counsel after the company was acquired by Roche. He was promoted to chief patent counsel and has worked as vice president and chief IP counsel since 2006.

Young leads the development and implementation of IP strategies and vision at Roche Diagnostics Corporation and Roche Diagnostics Operations.

He also works with Roche’s IP leadership to shape and set the company’s global IP direction and strategy, taking a leading role in establishing a strategy that produces tangible results and substantially increases the value of Roche.

In an interview with Life Sciences IP Review in 2016, Young explained that Roche is working hard to fight cancer and lead the way in personalised medicine.

"Young leads the development and implementation of IP strategies and vision at Roche Diagnostics Corporation and Roche Diagnostics Operations."

Court decisions such as Mayo v Prometheus and AMP v Myriad have made it tougher to obtain patents in the life sciences industry, especially in the diagnostics and gene sequencing areas, because of the stricter view of patentable subject matter.

“There are some patenting challenges in this area because a biomarker is a natural phenomenon so it can be a challenge to provide the right context for inventive activities,” Young explained in the interview.

He added: “We are looking at the patent office guidance on patentable matter and how courts are interpreting the cases, and we are always looking at the case law to see how it develops.”