Simmons & Simmons welcomes back regulatory partner from Pinsent Masons

Machteld Hiemstra, who will rejoin the Amsterdam office of Simmons & Simmons on 1 May, has expertise in regulatory law and life sciences. She also focuses on supplementary protection certificates, and the intersection between patent law and medical product authorisation.

Life sciences expertise

Hiemstra began her career in intellectual property and patent law at the Dutch office of international commercial law firm Stibbe in 1996. She then moved to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, followed by a stint in-house at Dutch multinational company AkzoNobel, from 2004 to 2007.

Machteld Hiemstra

Here, Hiemstra worked alongside the patent department on regulatory law and pharmaceutical matters. She then worked at DLA Piper, Bird & Bird and Hogan Lovells, before moving to Simmons & Simmons, where she remained from 2013 until June 2021. Between then and now, she was a partner in the Pinsent Masons life sciences team, joining as one of the firm’s first partners in its creation of a Dutch patent practice.

Machteld Hiemstra has advised various high-profile, life-science focused businesses, including GSK, Bayer, Abbott and Gilead, with GSK and Bayer remaining active clients. At Pinsent Masons, she was head of the medicine regulatory and healthcare practice.

Simmons strengthens team

Hiemstra’s return marks the biggest personnel change for Simmons & Simmons in Europe since its German team welcomed a patent attorney team from Isenbruck Bösl Hörschler at the beginning of 2022.

The firm’s Dutch office now has eleven patent lawyers, four of whom are partners. In recent years, Simmons & Simmons has bolstered its Dutch patent team significantly with the addition of partners Johan Renes, a patent attorney experienced in biotech patent litigation, and Oscar Lamme. The latter is well versed in pharma and mobile communications suits.

Speaking to JUVE Patent ahead of her return, Hiemstra says, “Moving to Pinsent Masons was a new adventure, but I am happy to return to Simmons & Simmons and join the partnership. The firm is well-positioned to address the challenges of the upcoming UPC, as well as ongoing pharmaceutical reforms at EU level. Simmons & Simmons also has a spread of experts across Europe, who I am looking forward to working alongside as I develop my practice further.”

Judith Krens, partner at Pinsent Masons in the Netherlands, says, “We thank Machteld for her contribution to the firm and we wish her well for the future. We are proud of the progress we’ve made in our Amsterdam office, growing from eight when it launched in 2021, to 39 today. We continue to develop our capabilities supporting our multinational client base on a broad range of issues including life sciences and patent disputes work via our established pan-European regulatory offering.”

Variation across Europe

Over the past few years, Pinsent Masons has been pursuing an aggressive growth plan in Europe, especially in its UK and Dutch offices. Judith Krens remains head of life sciences at the firm’s Amsterdam office, having joined in early 2022. However, the firm’s German office is still lacking solid patent expertise, while its French team is gaining some visibility among competitors.

Last month, the London office also announced that highly regarded patent attorney Kristina Cornish had moved to the firm as part of its drive to pursue a mixed-firm model. She is a partner in its life sciences team, which it has focused on expanding over the past few years. Cornish is one of the first patent attorney partners at the firm in London, with the move coming just months before the UPC opens its doors.

Prior to Cornish, the firm’s last major coup in London came in November 2021, with the addition of former CMS partner Gareth Morgan and a team of five associates who joined him shortly thereafter. In September 2021, the firm also hired Gina Bicknell from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Developments in the Netherlands

Hiemstra’s return to Simmons & Simmons is the latest in a series of moves in the Netherlands, where the patent market has seen several recent, high-profile changes. Yesterday, JUVE Patent reported on Anne Marie Verschuur’s move from Nauta Dutilh, where she has been a partner for ten years, to full-service firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. Verschuur fills the gap left by the firm’s former lead patent partner Gertjan Kuipers, who earlier this month joined the partnership at Hogan Lovells in Amsterdam. In April 2022, Hogan Lovells lost its most senior patent litigator Klaas Bisschop to the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam.

Furthermore, in February, Marleen van den Horst moved from her long-held role as head of patent litigation at BarentsKrans to become a partner at another full-service firm, La Gro Geelkerken Advocaten (LGGA). After 33 years at BarentsKrans, 27 of which she spent as partner, van den Horst is looking to develop LGGA’s patent litigation offering during a period of change for the European patent market. Undoubtedly, there will be further moves to come.

With the Dutch patent market lacking in diversity at partnership level, three of the country’s latest personnel moves being women is noteworthy. Last year, JUVE Patent took a deep-dive into the role of women in the Dutch patent market in the long read, “Waar zijn alle vrouwen? Addressing the gender imbalance in Dutch patent firms“, to which both Machteld Hiemstra and Marleen van den Horst contributed.