Sr. Director, Intellectual Property Counsel

About KalVista Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

KalVista Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a global pharmaceutical company that seeks to develop and deliver oral medicines for diseases with significant unmet need. The Company is focused on understanding the needs of patients and the limitations of current therapies to design treatments that empower people to better manage their disease and improve their lives. In August 2024, the Company announced its NDA for sebetralstat for hereditary angioedema (HAE) was accepted by the U.S. FDA with a PDUFA goal date of June 17, 2025. In addition, KalVista received validation of its MAA for HAE from the EMA and has submitted MAA applications to regulators in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia and Singapore.

For more information about KalVista, please visit www.kalvista.com or follow on social media at @KalVista and LinkedIn.

About the role:

KalVista seeks a dynamic and experienced Senior Director, Intellectual Property Counsel to expand, enhance and lead our IP legal function. In this critical role, you will develop and execute global intellectual property strategy. With a keen ability to build and develop strong relationships across the organization, you will bring a prominent level of legal and technical expertise and strategic thinking to proactively create, broaden, enforce, defend and monetize the Company’s IP portfolio and pipeline and commercial strategy, while identifying and mitigating risks. 

Reporting to our General Counsel, the Senior Director will be a trusted member of multidisciplinary teams and engage with colleagues at all levels of the organization to understand all aspects of the business. In doing so, you will be able to implement effective IP strategies for our portfolios, proactively soliciting invention disclosures and educating key stakeholders on KalVista’s IP strategy, while actively leading negotiations and other transactional work. 

Responsibilities:
 

• Direct and execute IP strategy and establish collaborative and positive working relationships with all functional areas, including R&D, CMC, business development, commercial and regulatory teams acting as an advisor on a variety of IP-related issues
• Drive our portfolio prosecution and strategy, while overseeing and conducting prior art searches, competitive landscape analysis, patentability, validity, non-infringement and freedom to operate analyses
• Serve as a strategic partner and IP thought leader for the Company in discovery, research, manufacturing, and development on patent, regulatory data exclusivity, trademark, trade secret, commercial launch strategies and other intellectual property issues
• Oversee worldwide preparation of prosecution of patent and trademark applications
• Build the Company’s patent portfolio through inventor and collaborator engagement and reviewing their submissions, while collaborating with senior colleagues to develop and execute the best practices of a business-focused patent program
• Conduct patent landscape studies and synthesize the results to facilitate actionable decisions with the coordination of outside counsel and search providers
• Formulate polices and guidelines for patent-related issues, the improvement of portfolio development processes and encourage patent-related practices consistent with KalVista’s goals
• Develop and manage patentability and freedom to operate assessments
• Facilitate patent searches and development of opinions on validity, non-infringement and patent avoidance of third-party patents and risk assessments
• Ensure trade secret protection
• Devel