Director / Senior Director, Intellectual Property, Life Sciences

Your Impact at LILA

Lila Sciences is building an autonomous scientific platform and applying it across therapeutics, materials, and other scientific domains. Our life sciences programs run from early research through candidate selection, often in collaboration with external partners, which makes strong intellectual property work essential.

We are looking for a life sciences patent lawyer to own IP strategy for these programs end to end. This is not a docket-management role. You will decide what gets filed and how it is claimed, and you will help shape the IP positions that support our commercial agreements.

The work spans both halves of a life sciences IP practice that are often split between two people: building and prosecuting a global patent portfolio, and advising on the IP terms of collaborations, licensing, and financings. If you have done both and want to do them for a single company rather than a client list, this role is built for you.

You will be the senior life sciences voice on a small, high-leverage team, with real scope to build.

What You'll Be Building

• Own global patent strategy for therapeutic programs, including composition-of-matter, formulation, delivery, method-of-use, and platform claims.
• Direct outside counsel on drafting and prosecution across major jurisdictions; set claim strategy rather than relay it.
• Design claim architecture that protects programs at each stage of their life cycle.
• Lead patentability, validity, and freedom-to-operate analyses; translate findings into go/no-go and design-around recommendations.
• Serve as IP lead on collaboration, option, license, and services agreements, including the IP terms that follow from them.
• Run IP due diligence for financings and partner transactions, including portfolio schedules, chain of title, and license obligations.
• Advise on inbound licenses for third-party software, data, models, and research tools, and build the clearance process that supports compliant use.
• Mentor junior legal team members and, over time, build and manage the life sciences IP function.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• J.D. and active bar admission, with USPTO registration.
• 12+ years of substantive patent experience in the life sciences, in a law firm, in-house, or a combination.
• Technical degree in chemistry, biochemistry, molecular or cellular biology, immunology, or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated ownership of global patent portfolios for biopharmaceutical products, with direct responsibility for claim strategy.
• Experience across a range of therapeutic modalities.
• Track record producing patentability, validity, and FTO assessments that supported real business decisions.
• Experience advising on IP aspects of collaborations, licensing, acquisitions, or financings, including diligence and negotiating provisions.

Bonus Points For

• Experience with option-based or milestone-based collaboration structures.
• Experience maintaining portfolio positions across related programs and partners.
• Familiarity with structure-based similarity and analog definitions as used in contracts.
• Experience with PTAB post-grant proceedings or district court and ITC litigation support.
• Exposure to AI or computational drug discovery, including related inventorship questions.