Michele M. Simkin provides strategic business counseling to life sciences, pharmaceutical, and medical device clients relating to all aspects of intellectual property, including patent procurement and portfolio management, licensing agreements, due diligence related to IP acquisitions or sales, as well as validity, non-infringement, and freedom to operate analyses. She is a partner in the firm’s Chemical, Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Practice. She previously served as chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property Department, overseeing a team of over 300 IP professionals, and she is currently a member of the firm’s Management Committee.

Michele represents a diverse range of clients, including pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies such as Alkermes Pharmaceuticals, 10x Genomics, Inc., and Celgene Corporation (now part of Bristol Myers Squibb), mid-sized biotechnology companies such as MacroGenics, Inc., EnGeneIC Ltd., and 22nd Century Group, Inc., manufacturing companies such as Stoner, Inc. (maker of Invisible Glass products), universities such as University of Pittsburgh, and start-up ventures in both traditional pharmaceuticals and biotechnology applications, such as Enterin, Inc. and BlueWillow Biologics, Inc.

Michele started her patent career in 1988 as a patent examiner in the biotechnology group of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. While an undergraduate, Michele worked in the laboratory of Professor David L. Nelson, culturing and harvesting the protozoan Paramecium, which were used as a model to study signal transductions using biochemical, genetic, molecular genetic, cell biological, and electrophysiological tools.