Timo Minssen

Kort præsentation

Timo Minssen is Professor of Law at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) and the Founding Director of UCPH's Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL). His research, supervision, teaching & part-time advisory practice concentrates on Intellectual Property-, Competition- & Regulatory Law with a special focus on new technologies, big data & artificial intelligence in the health & life sciences. This involves a plethora of legal & ethical issues emerging during the lifecycle of biotechnological and medical products and processes -  from the regulation of research and incentives for innovation to technology transfer and commercialization. Timo is also presenting frequently on a variety of pressing topics at international IP symposia, major law firms, the Universities of Oxford & Cambridge, Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, Stanford Law School, Yale,  MIT, the Broad institute, as well as at the European Medicines Agency and National Ehics Councils etc. He has published 2 books, as well as 100+ articles and book chapters in leading  journals, such as Science, Nature Biotech, Nature Electronics, PLoS-Computational Biology, Biotech. J., Drug Discovery, JLB,  BLR, Person.Med., IIC, EIPR, ECLR, JIPLP, GRUR Int., Chi.-Kent J. Intell. Prop., IPQ, QMJIP, NIR & EUConst.LR. He is also a regular contributor on Harvard Law School's "Bill of Health" blog. Prior to founding CeBIL, Timo headed CIIR's Copenhagen Biotech & Pharma Forum (CBPF)

Main research areas

• AI & Big Data in the Health & Life Sciences
• Pharmaceutical-, Life Science- & Biotech Law
• Comparative European & US Patent Law
• Intellectual Property Law & Open Innovation
• EU Competition- & US Antitrust Law

Fields of interest

• Synthetic Biology & Nanotechnology
• Law & (Emerging) Technologies
• EU Law
• Medical & Health Law
• E-Health

Appointments

• Director & Founder, Centre for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL).
• PI & grant recipient of Novo Nordisk Foundation's Collaborative Research Programme in Biomedical Innovation Law.
•  Senior Advisor, X-Officio, Support for ERICs, Research Infrastructures & their Business Partners.
• European lead, Stakeholder Consortium of Social Science Research Centres at Global AMR R&D Hub, BMBF, Berlin.
• Member of the International Expert Panel of the Genetic Discrimination Observatory (GDO).
• Scientific Advisory Board member of the Copenhagen Centre for Regulatory Sciences (CORS).
• Steering Committee Member, German Research Project "Rechtsschutz biologischer Innovationen und Erfindungen" at Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition.
• Steering committee member of the Danish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.
• Steering Committee Member of the Danish Life Science Law Association (LifeScienceLaw.DK).
• Legal member of Copenhagen Health Science Partners- Clinical Academic Group (CAG)- Precision Diagnostics in Cardiology.

Past appointments

• Expert Board Member of EU Commission study on the economic impact of pharma incentives.
• Head of the Copenhagen Biotech & Pharma Forum (CBPF- 2012-2016) 
• Legal member of COST Action IS1303 Citizen's Health through public-private Initiatives: Public health, Market and Ethical perspectives (CHIP ME)
• Expert member of the "ERA SynBio" Intiative & Network for Synthetic Biology (funded by the EU Commission)
• Legal expert member of the "ERASysAPP" Network for Systems Biology Applications (funded by the EU Commission)
• Member of UCPH's summer school programme committee
• Member of the Faculty's PhD committee (suppleant)

Editorial tasks

• Member of the Editorial Board of the European Pharmaceutical Law Review (EPLR).

Peer-review

• IIC- International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law
• The Lancet
• European Pharmaceutical Law Review
• QMJIP- Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property
• PLOS Biology

 Research management

1. Collaborative Research Program in Biomedical Innovation Law (Principal Investigator)
2. Co-supervisor for a PhD thesis and collaborator in an interdisciplinary research project on "Regulation of Biosimilars" (in co-operation with the Copenhagen Centre for Regulatory Sciences (CORS) and the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.

Completed

1. Global genes, local concerns: Legal, ethical and scientific challenges in cross-national biobanking and translational exploitation (Principal Investigator, WP leader & steering committee member).
2. CoNEXT - Fertilizing the ground and harvesting the full potential of the new neutron and X-ray research infrastructures close to UCPH (coPI, WP leader & steering committee member).
3. BioSYNergy: Synthetic Biology - towards a Bio-Based Society (coPI, WP leader & steering committee member).
4. AdManI: Additive Manufacturing and Innovation: Technical, Economic, Legal, and Policy Related Aspects of Rising Technologies (International Research Partner)
5. User Generated Law: Re-constructing Law in the Knowledge Society (coPI, WP leader)
6. Co-supervisor for a PhD thesis and collaborator in an interdisciplinary research project on "Counterfeit Medicines" (in co-operation with the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences).

PhD students

• Behrang Kianzad - Excessive prices, competition law & compulsory licenses in the pharma sector (supervisor)
• Hrefna Dögg Gunnarsdóttir, Data Ethics and Patient Perspectives in Digital Medicine (supervisor)
• Ivan Hadaya - IPRs in IoT & Health Tech (appointed supervisor)
• Louise Christine Druedahl - Regulation of Biosimilars (co-supervisor at KU Health)

Completed:

• Jakob Blak Wested - Applying Patents & Imagining Openness - Patenting enabling technologies in synthetic biology:  the case of CRISPR (supervisor- 2017)
• Olga Kokoulina - Standard Essential Patents and Injunctive Relief: Moving towards a holistic approach (supervisor- 2017. Recipient of Carlberg Foundation postdoc fellowship).
• Rasmus Borup - Fighting for Patient Safety: A qualitative case study of the role of private stakeholders and national authorities in the making of the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (co supervisor- 2016).
• Vadym Semenov -Denying prohibitory injunctive relief in patent disputes: grounds and justifications (co-supervisor - 2019)

PostDocs related to research projectsUpdate

• Ana Nordberg (BioSYNergy)
• Torsten Bjørn Larsen (CoNEXT)
• Helen Yu (CoNEXT)
• Jakob Wested (CeBIL)

CV

Timo Minssen is Professor of Law specializing in legal aspects of biomedical innovation at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). He is the Managing Director and Founder of UCPH's new Center for Advanced Studies and the Collaborative Research Programme in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL). As part-time Senior Advisor, he also specialises in supporting research infrastructures and their business partners in legal & governance matters.

Previously, Timo had been Professor of Biotechnology Law at UCPH's Centre for Information & Innovation Law (CIIR), Visiting Research Fellow at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford (UK), Harvard Law School and at the Chicago-Kent College of Law (US), as well as Max Planck stipendiate at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition in Munich (Germany). Moreover, he was trained in the German Court system (Referendariat) and worked for shorter periods at the European Patent Office (EPO), leading law firms, tech start-ups and for an interdisciplinary epigenetics project as a fellow of the Swedish Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies.

Timo holds a German law degree (Staatsexamen) from Georg-August-University in Göttingen, as well as Swedish biotech & IPR related LL.M., LL.Lic., and LL.D. degrees from Lund University and Uppsala University. His PhD thesis delivered a comprehensive study on the patentability of biopharmaceutical technology in the US & Europe, which received the Swedish King Oscar award. He has also received the Awapatent and Jorcks Foundation research prizes and was a finalist of the Swedish Wallenberg Academy Fellows program. 

Education & Visiting Scholarships

Employment 

Part-time employment, internships etc.

Undervisnings- og vejledningsområder

• European Pharmaceutical Law, IPR & the Life Sciences (UCPH -Course Coordinator)
• EU Health and Medical Law (UCPH Course Coordinator)
• European Intellectual Property Law & Policy in an International Context (UCPH - Course Coordinator)
• EU Law & the High Tech Industries (Guest Lecturer at Lund University)
• Advanced Competition Law: Competition and Innovation (Guest Lecturer at Lund University) 

Teaching in courses for Professionals and PhD students

• Copenhagen Summer University: Pharmaceutical Law & Policy (UCPH- Course Director)
• Innovation and intellectual property rights in biotechnology- Course for PhD-students, industrial biotechnologists and faculty in biotech patenting and entrepreneurship.
• Health Innovation - HealthZup - ideas for the future – new PhD course in innovation developed by the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCPH.  
• Information and Innovation law – Methodological Issues – organizer in collaboration with Professor Jens Schovsbo & CIIR.
• Interdisciplinary aspects in biobanking - 3-day PhD seminar
• KU Faculty of Law - PhD Introductory Course on Methodology and Research Methods. 
• Basic PhD course in the Danish Legal Research & Education Programme

Sprogkundskaber

• German (native)
• English  (full professional skills)
• Swedish (full professional skills)
• Danish (limited professional skills)
• Norwegian (limited skills)
• Russian (basic)
• French   (most basic EU certificate)
• Advanced Latin Proficiency Certificate ("Grosses Latinum")