Dr. Christy Rothwell specializes in developing creative and practical strategies to secure and protect intellectual property for key assets and increase value for her clients. She has particular expertise in finding solutions for complex issues and implementing strategies for overall product life cycles and business goals. Christy has 20 years of experience providing guidance to corporations, academic institutions, start-ups, and individuals at all levels of engagement and product development.

Christy is well-rounded in all facets of intellectual property: patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyright, licensing, contracts, due diligence, business development, opinions, and litigation support, particularly in the life science and pharmaceutical sector, including innovator, generic, complex, and biologic/biosimilar products. She has assisted clients in a variety of technologies, such as proteins, antibodies, gene therapy, pharmaceutical compounds and formulations, methods of treatment, diagnostics, medical devices, as well as other areas such as water filters and high-tech products.

Underlying Christy’s experience is her business acumen attained as in-house counsel at both large pharmaceutical and small tech/biotech companies. She has the ability to coordinate and communicate across all critical areas, including the executive level, to formulate intellectual property strategies that best protect client interests. As such, her practice extends across the entire product development pathway to incorporate procurement/invention, research and development, regulatory, clinical, and marketing along with the associated intellectual property, due diligence, and agreements, e.g., sponsored research, material transfer, service, joint development.  In addition, Christy has experience with clinical trials and agreements, regulatory/FDA (e.g., filings/disclosures, exclusivities, patent term extension), and grants, particularly with aligning the intellectual property and regulatory strategies and data protection.

Christy was a research scientist prior to becoming an attorney. She completed her Ph.D. in Biomedical Science, with a research focus in Tumor Biology, in 2001 at Georgetown University. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School/Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center, she began her career in intellectual property as a technical specialist in Boston. She completed her law degree in 2006 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and now resides in the Cincinnati area.