Andrew Williams

Andrew plays a leading role in our growing ‘Speciality Pharma’ team. He focuses particularly on supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) patent term extensions (PTEs), regulatory protection, patent-regulatory listings, as well as commercial and strategic aspects to consider for a medicinal product throughout its development and post-launch phases. This work has involved written and oral proceedings with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in relation to the EU’s Orphan Drug Exclusivity regime.

Andrew has worked in the IP sector since 2006, including over 10 years in-house at a leading global biopharmaceutical firm prior to joining Mewburn Ellis. Andrew has experience of taking a new medicinal product along the full journey from first patent draft to beyond worldwide launch, covering all IP aspects arising along the way.

In addition to his expertise in the fundamentals of drafting, worldwide prosecution and freedom-to-operate analysis, Andrew provides pragmatic business-focused IP advice in line with commercial, practical and other real-world considerations.

Andrew has extensive experience with IP agreements (collaborations, licences, deal structures, etc.) due diligences, negotiations and so on. He has managed and advised on significant contentious freedom-to-operate (FTO) issues, taken a lead role in IP dispute resolutions and has managed multi-jurisdictional IP litigation-related activities.

Areas of Expertise

• Pharmaceuticals (including small molecules, antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs))
• Medicinal Chemistry, Process Chemistry
• Patent Term Extensions including Supplementary Protection Certificates and Paediatric Extensions
• Regulatory Protection for medicinal products
• Patent-Regulatory Linkage mechanisms
• Commercial and Strategic considerations during development and post-launch phases for new medicinal products

Clients

Andrew’s clients include many of the well-known global pharma and life science firms, as well as many small and medium sized companies that may only have a small number of products in their early-stage pipeline.

Background

Andrew has a first-class Masters' degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford, and PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Bristol. Prior to embarking on his IP career, Andrew spent 3 years working in Process Chemistry at AstraZeneca. Andrew is dual-qualified as both a UK and European Patent Attorney.

He joined Mewburn Ellis in 2020 and became a Partner in 2023.