Haseltine Lake Kempner welcomes new partner to Chemistry and Life Sciences team

HLK is delighted to welcome Catherine Coombes, who joins the firm as a partner in its Chemistry and Life Sciences (CLS) team. Coombes will be based in the firm’s Leeds office.  

Coombes has spent 20 years in private practice protecting clients’ technology across life sciences and is well known for providing strategic and commercially focused IP advice. Her experience of working with clients in many specialist fields, such as large-scale pharmaceuticals, gene editing, food ingredients, plant biotechnology, sequencing, and drug delivery, bolsters the strength of the CLS team across these evolving areas of IP.

A CRISPR specialist, Coombes has worked on some of the earliest CRISPR patents exploiting its role in bacterial immunity and has been at the forefront of this technology ever since. This is an exciting area of IP that has seen rapid growth and major breakthroughs, and Coombes’ extensive experience in opposition matters, due diligence, and drafting across the wide array of technologies to which CRISPR has been applied further enhances the breadth and depth of the team.

Coombes will be one of the HLK team attending the Life Sciences Patent Network (LSPN) conference in San Francisco next month. The LSPN North America Fall 2024 conference will be a great opportunity for the HLK team to introduce Coombes to in-house patent counsel from leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. HLK will be hosting a roundtable on day two of the conference to discuss strategies for protecting CRISPR, CAR-T, and other immunotherapies.

The appointment of Coombes signifies further growth of HLK’s expert CLS team, following the promotion of Michael Ford in its Glasgow office to partner earlier this year.

Graham Lambert, CEO at HLK, comments: “I’m excited to have Catherine join our firm. She brings with her a wealth of experience in the life sciences and healthcare space, and we look forward to working with her to continue to enhance and develop our client offering. It is also an excellent opportunity to expand our team in Leeds and to show our commitment to supporting our clients wherever they may be located.”

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