Douglas Carsten

Last month, Carsten moved to McDermott in Irvine from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati’s San Diego shop, but he still lives in San Diego. Although the shift is a major career move, so far there’s been no change in scene.

“I’ll still be going to my same home office in my same bunny slippers every morning,” he laughed. “When we get clearance to open the firm offices again, I’ll probably drive up to Irvine once a week or so. I do like being with people.”

Also, McDermott has tentative plans to eventually open an office in San Diego, Carsten said, a project that remains on hold during the pandemic.

“We have shown that we can provide exceptional, top tier legal advice to clients without a physical law office, and we can also do great legal work, including trials, remotely,” he said.

“It’s strange to think about,” Carsten added. “The idea of having a judge and jury and opposing counsel in different states sounds like a Twilight Zone episode.”

Carsten said at heart he’s a builder who is passionate about constructing a legal team to pursue the cases he enjoys. Moving to McDermott is a logical step, he added.

“Here’s a shot to build something truly spectacular. McDermott is number one in health care.”

That’s an important consideration to a lawyer who has successfully tried billion-dollar patent cases in areas including pharmaceuticals, biologics, medical devices, diagnostic products and retail products.

In his home office, he keeps his Lego collection, including some original Star Wars pieces plus an orange Porsche and a blue Bugatti.

“I enjoy them, and they’re a bit symbolic,” he said, “a metaphor for working on a case where you take each part singly and put together a greater whole.”

In March 2020, Carsten obtained a significant win for generic drugmaker Mylan GMBH, a European firm that last fall combined with Pfizer Inc.’s Upjohn unit to form a new company called Viatris.

At issue was Mylan’s lower cost insulin glargine pen product; a district court in New Jersey ruled that the sole remaining device patent of 16 originally asserted by Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC was not infringed and was invalid for lack of a written description. Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC v. Mylan GMBH, 17-CV09105 (D. N.J., filed Oct. 24, 2017).

The ruling brought the generic product closer to the marketplace, pending final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Diabetes is a health crisis in America,” Carsten said. “I was very glad to help this lower-cost insulin product through the patent thicket. It was one of the proudest moments of my career.”

He said that Mylan and its successor may not follow him to McDermott, but that he retains as a client the biotech giant United Therapeutics Corp., a company that sometimes battles generic drugmakers.

“I straddle the fence,” Carsten said. “I’m both Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”

— John Roemer