Director Group Patents

Job Description:

At Ferring Pharmaceuticals, we help people around the world build families and live better lives. We are entrepreneurial and innovative, with a global team focused on scientific advances in the areas of reproductive and women’s health, gastroenterology and urology. Ferring + You is all about working together and sharing ideas, so that we can bring science to life for patients around the world.

Every person at Ferring works together to change lives and help people build families. Our corporate teams offer empowering, innovative, challenging and rewarding careers – we are motivated to make a difference. To reach our full potential we collaborate, and respect and value diverse contributions so that we can grow as an organisation and as professionals. Together we can influence the world around us to make life and work better.

We are seeking a Director, Group Patents who has successfully evolved from being a technical patent expert into a true enterprise IP business partner.

This is a highly visible strategic leadership role for a senior professional who no longer operates only at portfolio level, but actively shapes franchise value, competitive positioning and long-term exclusivity strategy. The role requires operating at the intersection of science, law and business, ensuring that IP is fully embedded in corporate and franchise decision making.

The successful candidate will partner cross functionally with R&D, Regulatory and Legal, but equally with Franchise, Global Product Teams, Pricing & Market Access, Finance, Commercial and Portfolio Strategy and Business Development. The objective is to move beyond siloed therapeutic ownership and drive integrated, value focused IP strategies across the organization.

This position currently carries no direct reports but offers significant enterprise exposure and is designed for a leader with the influence, people orientation and strategic mindset to grow into broader IP leadership responsibilities over time.

• Define and drive the global IP strategy for assigned franchises or therapeutic platforms, fully aligned with corporate, R&D and commercial priorities
• Act as strategic IP business partner to Franchise Heads and Global Project Teams, shaping lifecycle, exclusivity strategy, including PTE, and competitive positioning
• Integrate patent, regulatory exclusivity and data protection levers into a coherent long term exclusivity roadmap
• Lead high impact portfolio, including filing strategy, geographic scope and investment level, based on business and strategic priorities
• Set strategic direction for global drafting and prosecution strategy
• Deliver clear and pragmatic legal & IP opinions on validity, infringement and exclusivity matters enabling informed decision making

• Partner beyond R&D and Legal with Franchise, Pricing & Market Access, Finance and Commercial leadership to embed IP into enterprise decision making
• Contribute to early asset strategy discussions including clinical positioning, label expansion and value optimisation
• Provide strategic IP input to Business Development and other corporate transactions

• Provide executive level views on competitive threats including generic and biosimilar risk
• Lead franchise level freedom to operate, validity and broader competitive risk assessments
• Shape enforcement, opposition and litigation positioning in alignment with business priorities

• Contribute to the evolution of the global IP operating model and future capability development
• Own relevant budget planning and promote continuous improvement of IP processes and governance
• Act as a role model and informal leader, fostering cross portfolio collaboration and breaking therapeutic silos.

• European Patent Attorney qualification required; additional national qualification is a plus
• Extensive experience in pharmaceutical patents with demonstrated exposure to full lifecycle and competitive defence strategy
• Proven experience influencing cross functional senior stakeholders,…