Transformative Legal’s growing team of professionals is comprised of a core team of attorneys, patent agents, and paralegals, and an extended team of additional counsel; including regulatory, quality, and compliance consultants as well as technical advisors. Our core team is composed of professionals with at least ten years of technical and/or legal/regulatory experience. All core team members are evaluated and paid in significant part based on the quality and effectiveness of their work.
Len Smith has 25 years of IP, legal, and regulatory experience, including serving as Chief Business and Legal Officer of Heliae, a cutting-edge industrial biotechnology company, VP of Business and Legal Affairs / Chief IP Counsel for Valeant Pharmaceuticals (now Bausch Health) and Medicis Pharmaceuticals, and Corporate IP Counsel at Novo Nordisk. In these roles, Len has served as lead counsel and directed extensive IP litigation, licensing, and IP portfolio management activities.
Len holds a J.D. from Washington University (order of the coif), a Regulatory Affairs Certification (via RAPS), an MBA, and additional technical degrees in biology, environmental sciences, and information systems management. Len also has completed internships with the Office of the Vice President of the United States, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. Len is a USPTO Registered Patent Attorney and is licensed to practice law in both Arizona and Illinois.
Julie E. Kurzrok is a registered patent attorney with both prior leading law firm and pharmaceutical industry experience. Julie has represented both innovator and generic pharmaceutical companies in Hatch-Waxman patent litigation, and has counseled clients on patent portfolio management, infringement and invalidity opinions, litigation strategy, and settlement negotiations. Julie also has experience prosecuting patents in various technologies before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in directing foreign counsel in international patent prosecution matters. Julie graduated from Rutgers Camden Law School, and holds a Master’s Degree in Biological Sciences. Julie is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey, the respective district court bars, as well as before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
David Schodin leverages a combination of over a decade in legal services and over a decade in strategic business operations to help Transformative’s clients craft deals and build IP that add value. In legal services, David was previously Senior Counsel at Abbott Laboratories, serving Abbott’s immunodiagnostics, molecular diagnostics, mature drugs, and the oncology and pain pharmaceutical development franchises. Prior to Abbott, David was an associate of the prestigious IP boutique law firm of Leydig, Voit and Mayer, Ltd. (Chicago, IL). David has also been a Senior Advisor to two low-to-mid market investment banks. David is a registered US patent attorney and licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois.
In business, David served as Director, Business Development at Abbott Molecular, a division of Abbott Laboratories, for eight years. David also served as Chief Strategy Officer of Metabolomic Technologies Inc. (Edmonton, Canada), Senior Director of Business Development at Natera (San Carlos, CA), and Head, Business Development at 20/20 Gene Systems (Rockville, MD). David’s successes in business roles include crafting and executing a US – Chinese technology access deal with an announced value of $50M, crafting more than 6 complex technology access and collaboration deals involving 1st tier diagnostics companies (other than Abbott), leading a patent monetization and licensing campaign that generated eight figures in upfronts and negotiating the end to nearly a decade of litigation (on highly favorable terms), and engineering multiple patent FTO initiatives to secure freedom to operate in key lines of business.
Denise Brown is a certified Laboratory Medical Technologist (ASCP) and a US Patent and Trademark Office Registered Patent Agent. Denise has focused on patent prosecution and other patent-related matters for over five years, including over four years with Transformative. Denise has over 20 years of other experience supporting innovative biotechnology, medical device, and human health research organizations in a variety of roles and working with a wide range of technologies.
For more than a decade, Denise was a Project Director at Kronos Optimal Health and Science Laboratory. Denise also worked as a plant biotechnology research scientist at Arizona State University, an associate scientist at Scriptgen/Anadys Pharmaceuticals, and has served in similar research/technology and regulatory related roles for a variety of other pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations. Denise holds a Medical Laboratory Science Degree from the University of Vermont.
Becky Anweiler is a Certified Paralegal with a Degree from Kent State University focused on legal studies and over eighteen years of law firm and in-house/corporate paralegal and related experience. Becky’s professional paralegal work has included initiation and maintenance of legal docketing systems; domestic and international patent prosecution submission, document, and information management; managing foreign counsel in international trademark and patent portfolios; performing trademark searches; handling patent and trademark submissions and providing other prosecution support services; handling maintenance of intellectual property assets; preparing and submitting copyright registrations; setting up patent family/document monitoring and trademark watch services; and supporting in contracting drafting and negotiation.
Deb Fuller has nearly three decades of technology and regulatory experience supporting regulatory and scientific operations in pharmaceuticals, environmental sciences/technologies, and petroleum exploration/production. Deb has deep experience in FDA-related quality affairs, quality control, research and development, and regulatory compliance operations. Deb’s experience includes working as a laboratory technician and manager for Elan Pharmaceuticals, Watson Laboratories, Actavis, Allergan, and Teva Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Transformative, Deb was the compliance manager at Primus Pharmaceuticals, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Deb holds a degree in Chemistry from Louisiana State University.
20 Years of Experience
in Legal Consulting