Robert Andrews

Focus on Inclusivity

Robert is our Chief Inclusion & Diversity Officer and is responsible for leading the firm’s Inclusion & Diversity strategy and ensuring this remains a key focus for the firm. As part of this Robert is a signatory to the IP Inclusive Senior Leader’s Pledge.

Robert is recognised as a WIPR - World IP Review Diversity 2022 Champion.

Robert is a member of IP Inclusive Management.

Areas of Expertise

The majority of Robert’s work is in the biopharma sector, principally with companies undertaking drug discovery and development. He advises on all stages of a medicine’s lifecycle, from initial discovery through clinical trials to regulatory approval. Working closely with in-house IP teams and scientists, he has extensive experience of drafting and prosecution, global portfolio management and invention capture. He also helps clients negotiate IP agreements and performs due diligence.

• Antibody therapeutics – particularly antibody-drug conjugates in the oncology field (including immune-oncology)
• Industrial fermentation – especially amino acid & bioethanol production
• Biotherapeutic separation and purification technologies – in particular flow-filtration methods

Clients

In the UK and Europe, Robert’s clients are mainly biopharma companies involved in oncology. He also works with Korea-based biopharmas that focus on therapeutic proteins and industrial fermentation. His US clients include multinational biotechs that specialise in industrial fermentation.

Background

Robert has a Masters in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a Masters in philosophy from the University of Cambridge. He also has a PhD from Cambridge, which involved cellular developmental biology research. He joined Mewburn Ellis LLP in 2006, qualifying as a Chartered Patent Attorney in 2010 and a European Patent Attorney in 2011. He joined the partnership in 2015.

Robert spent several months living in Seoul while working with a firm of Korean patent attorneys, developing expertise in the Korean biopharma and patent sectors. He has presented many seminars on European IP practices to Korean patent attorneys and was the first European patent attorney to the KIPO biotechnology group. He has also written for the KPAA newsletter.

Robert is an Elected Member of the Society of Biology (MSB).

Opposition highlights

Robert has worked on multiple opposition cases, including:

EP2188381, Dansico vs one party: Opposing an Iogen Energy Corporation patent (one of a group of 4 linked oppositions) covering industrial fermentation enzyme mixtures with scope far exceeding the supporting experimental data. Robert succeeded in having the patent revoked at opposition.

EP2591119, Dansico vs one party: Opposing a Novozymes patent covering industrial fermentation reactions comprising GH61 polypeptides. Successfully narrowed claims to clarify our client's freedom to operate in a commercially important space. 

EP1877568, Danisco vs one party: Opposing a Novozymes patent covering industrial fermentation reactions comprising LARF polypeptides. Robert successfully narrowed claims to clarify our client's freedom to operate in a commercially important space. 

Recommendations

Robert is recognised as a "key lawyer" in the 2023-2025 edition of The Legal 500.