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Reid Adler

Reid has been involved with innovation management in the life sciences field for over 30 years, including complex technology transactions, the strategic management of intellectual property portfolios, and the development of programs and policies for technology transfer. His legal career includes experience as a senior partner of two international law firms, Morrison & Foerster and Morgan Lewis, and as general counsel to the genomics pioneer, the J. Craig Venter Institute. He has also consulted with several multinational pharmaceutical company on exclusivity strategies for their pipeline products.

Reid had successfully handled a variety of innovation-related challenges for various clients. These include, as examples, negotiating purchase agreements for advanced genomic sequencing equipment, evaluating and reorganizing a portfolio of over 1,000 patents for a mid-size pharmaceutical company, developing a comprehensive innovation management policy and program for a major non-profit research organization, conducting acquisition-related due diligence and freedom-to-operate studies in a multidisciplinary team with in-house scientific and business development managers, negotiating exclusive patent license agreements with various Federal agencies and universities, applying for SBIR funding awards, investigating a case of scientific misconduct, appealing a patent license termination by NIH, designing technology marketing programs, developing institutional compliance programs and providing related training for recipients of Federal funding, and out-licensing patent portfolios to achieve alignment with business objectives.

Reid was the founding director of the NIH Office of Technology Transfer, where he recruited and managed a team of over 40 people. Reid played a key role in developing policies and model agreements, research integrity guidelines and the Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement, currently used by hundreds of organizations worldwide. He was also the founding president of the Association of Federal Technology Transfer Executives.

He holds a J.D. from the George Washington University Law School. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Giles Rich at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. After that, he was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in Munich, Germany. Reid has testified before Congress on technology transfer policy, published numerous articles, and has taught courses in Innovation Management, Strategic Planning, Technology Transfer, and Legal Aspects of Biotechnology for The Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University Law School, DePaul University Law School and the FAES Graduate School at NIH. He recently published a website to provide courses and training resources for innovation management at (www.innovationmatters.co). Reid also has chaired the boards of several community nonprofit organizations involved with the fine arts and with middle and high-school education.