Welcome Message from the Faculty Director

00:04 A path in between

00:05 is a great definition of my entire career (laughs).

00:10 So, I started out studying biology in undergrad,

00:15 and what I wanted to be,

00:19 if you would ask me in high school was a veterinarian.

00:21 So that's why I started down that path,

00:24 but I very quickly learned about the research world,

00:29 and I became very interested in that,

00:31 and I did some work with a PI at the University of Maryland,

00:35 and that PI happened to be taking law classes on the side.

00:41 So she introduced me to this whole world

00:46 of the intersection between law and science.

00:49 And I thought it was fascinating,

00:51 and I started to see some of the different opportunities

00:55 that were out there.

00:56 And I decided to go to law school as well.

00:59 So right after my undergrad

01:01 I went straight into law school to Suffolk.

01:05 And in my final year,

01:07 I worked for Partners Healthcare Office for Interactions

01:12 with Industry.

01:14 And that introduced me to,

01:17 even though I was in a nonprofit organization,

01:22 it introduced me to the world of industry,

01:24 and I ended up working for a small biotech

01:28 after I graduated.

01:30 And when I was working for the small biotech,

01:33 and I mean, small, it was 20 people

01:35 when I first started there.

01:38 I was, it was so small that I was able to get

01:41 a really good taste of everything that is involved

01:45 in taking a, an idea of something that could potentially

01:53 be a therapy for patients and putting it

01:57 through clinical trials,

01:59 and trying to get approval for a drug.

02:04 And I ultimately went on to work at Vertex Pharmaceuticals

02:10 which is where I am now, and all of, everything that led up

02:15 to my time at Vertex prepared me to be very agile,

02:23 in what I work on,

02:26 and what ended up happening at Vertex

02:28 is I just, by chance started working on all of the projects

02:34 that there wasn't a set role for already,

02:38 or there wasn't a group of people that was already assigned

02:44 or had the organization set up to work on something.

02:48 So for example, when the Sunshine Act came into effect,

02:53 I started working on that,

02:55 and when the EU General Data Protection Regulation started,

03:00 I was on the team for that.

03:02 When Brexit came around, we started preparing

03:04 for how we're going to respond to Brexit.

03:07 And now my current position

03:09 is I'm working as a Chief of Staff

03:11 for the clinical development organization.

03:15 And it's just a very broad role that allows me

03:19 to look at things from a business perspective,

03:23 and from a research perspective,

03:26 but certainly I think having a law degree has allowed me

03:33 to approach things from a certain perspective.

03:37 And it also people, when people see that I have a JD,

03:41 they kind of flag me as someone who might be interested

03:44 in working on projects that cross over

03:47 between science and law.

00:07 I think that one of the mistakes

00:09 that some of the biotechs make is that they're like,

00:12 "Well, if you don't have all of these backgrounds,

00:15 we're not gonna hire you."

00:19 Then nobody gets hired

00:20 because nobody has all the backgrounds, right?

00:22 And so what I find when talking to scientists

00:27 who are not trained almost to do anything except science,

00:30 is that it really helps them

00:32 if they have some other program they've taken

00:36 or they've done internships that are outside

00:40 of the science field.

00:42 The problem is scientists are told,

00:43 "Oh, you're gonna go to law school,

00:44 you must be a patent attorney."

00:46 No, there's a million other jobs

00:48 that are not patent attorneys.

00:50 And I love my patent attorney friends,

00:51 but really there's a lot to do in law as a scientist,

00:55 that is not a patent attorney.

00:57 Regulatory and business development and HR,

01:02 so that you can understand what a biotech actually needs

01:07 in a higher and a recruitment option.

01:13 And so, I think when I mentor people and they say,

01:15 "As scientists, well I'm really am interested

01:17 in going into industry."

01:19 It's do you wanna be in the lab as a scientist?

01:21 Or do you wanna do something else?

01:22 And if you really wanna be on the business,

01:23 I know that learning some more of those other

01:27 aspects is really important

01:28 because scientists are just not trained that way.

01:31 Now, if I'm mentoring people

01:32 coming out of business programs, and I see a lot of those,

01:38 I say to them,

01:39 "Well, do you have any basic science background at all?"

01:42 And if they don't, I recommend they learn a little bit

01:46 because they're gonna need,

01:48 even if they're in the legal offices only,

01:51 they do have to understand enough of basic science

01:53 that they can translate.

01:55 They can talk to the scientists

01:56 and see what it is they're doing and why it's important

01:59 so that they can understand the contracts

02:02 or the licensing or whatever it is

02:04 they're they're trying to get done.

02:05 So, a little bit of both is important.

02:08 You don't have to be an expert in everything,

02:10 but a little bit of both.

00:13 - I'm a big proponent of everyone should know enough

00:17 to be dangerous and also know what are the triggers

00:20 to reach out to an expert.

00:22 I have situations all the time.

00:24 I'm working with CEO-scientists

00:27 that are in nascent stage of their stealth mode

00:31 of building their organization.

00:33 And I'm always fascinated when they show me documents

00:35 that they thought were legally accurate

00:37 when it comes to non-competes or restrictive agreements

00:41 or how do you make your first hire

00:43 and how are you strategic

00:45 in building out your people strategy.

00:48 They need to know enough to be dangerous.

00:51 And I think it's critically important

00:54 to setting up a business as a success

00:56 to have, to understand those touch points

00:59 and then to be able to go to the experts

01:01 to help you flesh out that information that you need.