Fish & Richardson announced today that Helen Baca, Ph.D., has joined the Boston office as a principal in the firm’s life sciences group.
“Helen brings more than a decade of experience as a top-flight adviser to the industry on patent and IP issues,” said John Adkisson, president and chief executive officer of Fish. “Drawing on her background as a senior in-house counsel and an academic in chemistry and biology, she excels at translating her knowledge of technical subject matter into meaningful risk assessments for clients.”
Baca focuses her practice on IP portfolio management, strategic client counseling, and patent prosecution in diverse scientific and engineering fields. She has significant experience performing portfolio audits, preparing and prosecuting patent applications, and advising on patent infringement, freedom-to-operate, validity, and inventorship issues. Her technical areas of expertise include advanced chemical and biological materials, small molecule and protein therapeutics, nucleic acid and peptide technology, drug formulations, drug delivery systems, drug discovery platforms, microfluidics, droplet-based systems, medical devices, memristors, photonic systems, and microresonators. Baca is licensed in both Massachusetts and New Mexico.
“I’m excited to join the country’s preeminent IP firm,” said Dr. Baca. “I look forward to contributing to the firm’s leading life sciences practice and to offer its full, considerable capabilities to my clients.”
Baca joins Fish from Weaver Austin Villeneuve & Sampson LLP, and previously served as in-house counsel at Sandia National Laboratories. She received her J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 2009, and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in the Department of Chemistry in 2005. Her graduate research was interdisciplinary and led to the development of a droplet-based microfluidic platform for performing biological and chemical reactions.