Senior Director, Associate General Counsel - Head of Patent Litigation

Reporting directly to the VP, Head of Litigation as a member of the group’s leadership team, Genentech is seeking a Senior Director, Associate General Counsel - Head of Patent Litigation to lead a team of attorneys focused on defending our innovations in close partnership with our business and IP colleagues. The right candidate will serve as a senior partner and strategist to the business needs of Genentech, a member of the Roche group. We are looking for candidates with deep experience in the life sciences and, in particular, with biosimilars patent litigations and proceedings, either as an in-house attorney or a law firm partner. The role also includes the opportunity to run litigations directly, both in the patent space and in the commercial space.  

This position is based onsite at our South San Francisco, California campus and is not suitable for a fully-remote working arrangement.  Relocation benefits are available for this job posting.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Key responsibilities of this role include the following:

• Leads and manages a team of litigation attorneys in designing and driving global litigation strategies for our Intellectual Property Litigation team (patents, trade secrets, etc.) that is innovative, high value, business enabling, and global in impact and alignment across our sister companies. This includes assessing, communicating and mitigating risk, and identifying and exploiting new opportunities and approaches, leveraging both a knowledge of industry trends and of the competitive landscape across Genentech and Roche portfolios.

• Specializes in patent litigations in the life sciences, including experience with both Hatch-Waxman ANDA and BPCIA biosimilars matters, ideally both in court and at the PTAB.  

• Provides leadership and coaching for your team in a global matrixed environment, inspiring your team to perform at their best, modeling key behaviors, and optimizing their growth opportunities and capabilities to successfully contribute and operate in the global environment. 

• Prioritizes work of the team, oversees workload and resource allocation, and supports direct reports on the prioritization of high-value work and assignments.

• Serves as an active and engaged member of Genentech’s Litigation Practice Group (LPG) Leadership team. 

• Advises senior executives and leaders of affected business units on the risks, benefits, and likelihood of successful outcomes associated with IP litigation matters, and recommends and influences significant decisions about such matters. 

• Actively and effectively partners with stakeholders at all levels of the global organization and across all phases of research, drug development and commercialization to provide business enabling strategies, counseling and recommendations. This includes finding opportunities to partner with Legal colleagues and the business in service of our Legal Priorities of connecting around the work and co-owning business outcomes.

• Steps back from the work to see the big picture and set litigation and business strategy that best serves the practice’s and company’s long-term vision and goals, and envisions and prepares for challenges that may soon come our way.

• Manages external litigation counsel relationships, including compliance with internal guidelines for fee arrangements, budgets, and billing.

• Directly manages a variety of litigations as needed and where time permits, including outside IP litigation.

• Ability to travel in conjunction with managing and resolving disputes.  

CRITICAL COMPETENCIES

Visionary:

• Impacts the business by sensing and proactively seizing opportunities to create value; being an excellent strategist and influencer; acts with courage and integrity in tackling difficult or challenging issues within as well as beyond the practice area.

Architect:

• Proactively evolves and innovates our substantive practices in Litigation to meet changing legal and business needs, focusing on solutions that are good for the enterprise rather than particular stakeholders. Develops and deploys strategies, processes, and operating standards to ensure highest quality practices and execution for all aspects of litigation in a high performing, agile team.

Coach:

• Prioritizes efforts, creative energy and attention to ensure robust value-add practices on a day-to-day basis as well as success across the glo