Making Things Right for a Scientist

A scientist at a prominent research hospital made a central contribution to a project working with colleagues in a different laboratory at the hospital. The research led to a license agreement with a major pharmaceutical company that later introduced a product based upon this research. The product was a blockbuster, rapidly exceeding a billion dollars in annual sales. Royalties started flowing in to the research hospital.

Like many research institutions, this hospital has a policy of sharing license revenues with the scientists who generate valuable ideas, and also with their labs. Unfortunately for our client, his contribution to the project had been discounted and it looked like the royalties would not be coming his way. In the face of stiff departmental rivalries and bureaucratic inertia, our litigation team engaged with the legal department of the hospital, including participating in a mediation proceeding, and managed to persuade the hospital of the significance of our client’s contribution to the project. Subsequently, one of our business attorneys was then able to navigate the hospitals conflict-of-interest rules so as to enable our client to use the royalties that were to be paid to his lab to fund his start-up company’s research. Thus, the client is now receiving royalties personally and his start-up is thriving.