Ms. Cheng has over 20 years’ experience in the corporate legal field, and an extensive background in international intellectual property. She has more than 5 years’ experience in non-profits, including serving as the General Counsel and Vice President for Business Development for the Institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH), a non-profit pharmaceutical company and a product development partnership (PDP). She is a co-author of Socially Responsible Licensing.
While at iOWH, she successfully established several private-public collaborations including: Semi-synthetic Artemisinin Project, iOWH/Roche Collaboration, iOWH/Novartis Collaboration and iOWH/Anacor Collaboration.
Ms. Cheng has been a patent attorney for many years, writing and prosecuting patent applications, structuring corporate patent strategies, and supervising patent litigation. Her practice has encompassed myriad transactions involving patents, trade secrets and know-how licensing in many healthcare areas.
This rare combination of skills and experience provides Ms. Cheng an unique advantage in crafting licensing and collaboration agreements. She has successfully negotiated many creative licensing arrangements, especially between non-profits and pharmaceutical companies. These licensing arrangements have varied in scope and content, but have provided the industry partner with patent rights for their primary indications while allowing the non-profit the ability to provide low-cost products to their target patients in developing countries.
Prior to iOWH, Ms. Cheng spent nearly seven years with Bayer HealthCare, in both the Diagnostics and Biologicals Divisions. During her tenure at Bayer, she was part of the negotiating teams for many transactions, including: Sale of Innogenetics’ LiPA HIV and LiPA HCV Tests, Exclusive Development and Supply Agreement for Diagnostic Sequencing and Bayer’s Acquisition of Visible Genetics. Before joining Bayer, Ms. Cheng worked for Rohm and Haas Company and Alcon Laboratories, Inc., with a focus on international intellectual property.
Ms. Cheng holds a JD from Franklin Pierce Law Center (now the University of New Hampshire Law School) and a BA in Chemistry from Reed College. She is a member of the New York, Pennsylvania and Texas bars, and is registered to practice before the US Patent & Trademark Office.