Recordati creates new head IP counsel role with major Zentiva hire

Kristin Cooklin has moved into the newly created role of group head IP counsel at Italy-based pharmaceutical company, Recordati. Her position, which will involve caring for the company’s various IP assets and preparing the company for any potential litigation, comes as Europe’s IP litigation market is busier than ever in the face of increased biosimilar litigation.

Until now, Recordati had only one IP manager. Thus, Cooklin’s role, which she took up on 2 April, is likely to include building on and expanding the existing IP management function in Recordati. While currently based in Prague, where Zentiva has its headquarters, Cooklin will soon relocate to Basel, Switzerland.

Although Recordati is an Italian company with its headquarters in Milan, it has a strong presence in the Swiss city. Several of the main Recordati arms, including its rare diseases division, is also located there.

Kristin Cooklin

At the coalface

Prior to her new position at Recordati, Cooklin spent six years at generic drug company Zentiva as its global head of IP. In this role, among other things, she looked after its divestment from previous parent company, Sanofi.

While at Zentiva, Cooklin also worked on numerous high-profile cases including a case brought by Novartis against Zentiva and Aliud Pharma over the sale of breast cancer drugs in Germany; Bayer Healthcare’s battle to prevent the market entry of generic versions of its lucrative cancer drug, Nexavar; and a battle with Novartis over a treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, with active ingredient fingolimod.

Speaking to JUVE Patent, Kristin Cooklin says, “After a brilliant six years at Zentiva, I have had the unique opportunity to join Recordati and I couldn’t be more excited to get started working on the company’s various IP needs and values. Although my role is global and will encompass the US and rest of the world, I remain situated in Europe at a pivotal time for the litigation market – especially in pharmaceuticals and life sciences.”

A pharma-focused career

Kristin Cooklin is qualified as both a US attorney-at-law and as a patent attorney. She spent around 12 years in private practice, beginning her career at various law firms in Washington DC, including as an associate at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney and as an IP associate at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.

Cooklin then spent her final few years in private practice at Crowell & Moring, where she specialised in Hatch-Waxman litigation. According to PhRMA Org, this is a “comprehensive legal framework enacted by Congress in 1984 to streamline the process for generic pharmaceutical approvals and preserve incentives for innovation, including the creation of a procedure for patent litigation involving generic pharmaceuticals”.

Thus, this experience set the stage for her next step when, in 2014, she moved to Germany to become senior global patent litigation counsel at Sandoz, previously part of Novartis. After over four years here, she left the role of head of global IP litigation and moved to Zentiva. Here, Cooklin helped oversee the company’s transformation into a successful independent generic and biosimilar business. Former head patent attorney at Zentiva, Cecile Teles, has taken over Cooklin’s role and is now Zentiva’s head of IP.