Michael J. Wise

Wise chairs Perkins Coie’s life sciences and healthcare industry group firmwide. He and the group litigate clients’ patent issues in federal courts and before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Unlike IP groups in many other firms, they also assist clients in applying for and prosecuting patents in the patent office.

His broad experience in those three areas enhances his skills in counseling clients on developing and protecting their overall patent portfolio, he said. “The value proposition that I bring to the table is having experience in all three buckets,” he said. “Being versed in all three, I’m better able to manage the portfolio and direct the portfolio in a meaningful way.”

Since pandemic restrictions began easing earlier this year, Wise and his group have been inundated with work. “My phone’s ringing off the hook,” he said. “We’re just across-the-board busy with new matters.”

In one very new case, he represents the multinational biopharmaceutical company Amgen. Wise is the lead counsel for the company in a patent infringement action in Delaware over three patents related to using glucocorticoids with certain types of biologic therapeutics. Lindis Biotech GMBH v. Amgen Inc., 1:22-cv-00035 (D. Del., filed Jan. 10, 2022).

A longtime client keeping Wise and his team busy on the patent prosecution side is the City of Hope. Currently, they are overseeing 95 patent applications in the U.S. and worldwide dealing with medical technologies ranging from cancer treatment to nanotechnology. The Perkins Coie team also provides support for the medical center’s due diligence and licensing issues.

A couple of clients are working with cutting-edge science. Wise oversees a team acting as outside patent counsel for Eloxx Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is developing small molecule medicines to treat rare diseases caused by a type of genetic error. The medicines allow cells to ignore the errors to produce necessary proteins.

Wise has represented Editas Medicine since 2015. The company is developing gene editing techniques using CRISPR to treat certain eye and blood diseases directly inside malfunctioning cells’ nuclei. He supervises a team that handles patent filings and counseling for the company. “I guide the client and lawyers on how the portfolio is managed to address both the competitive issues and the client’s applications,” he said.

Two clients who came to Wise during the pandemic also are developing unusual technology. I2Pure Corp. has developed a type of iodine-based hand sanitizer that continues to work long after it is rubbed into the skin. Wise’s team handles the company’s patent strategy and filings, and he also serves as the firm’s client relationship lead for corporate matters.

He and his team are doing similar work for Koniku Inc. One of its inventions contains genetically modified olfactory cells that can be better at sniffing out explosives that dogs, Wise said.

And next week, Wise and his all-lawyer rock band, Privileged Communications, are hoping for their fifth win in a legal battle of the bands at the Whiskey a Go Go to benefit the City of Hope. Wise is the lead singer.

– Don DeBenedictis