Mika Reiner Mayer

As a Cooley LLP partner in the patent counseling and prosecution field— and a member of the firm’s litigation department leadership team—Mika Reiner Mayer handles more IP due diligence reviews than any other attorney in the U.S. The reviews are a critical part of deals ranging from venture investments to debt financings to partnerships to acquisitions.

“Life sciences deals are booming. I don’t think I’ve worked this hard since I was a junior associate,” Mayer said. “The Cooley model is to represent life sciences clients across all stages. We stay with them from their early stages on, and new companies are getting minted all the time.”

For example, among scores of clients, Mayer has represented a Menlo Park-based health care equipment company, Intersect ENT, since 2004, shortly after its founding. It makes drug-delivery devices used in the treatment of sinusitis, including the first bioabsorbable anti-inflammatory medicine releasing sinus stent. (ENT stands for ear, nose and throat.)

In August 2021, Intersect ENT signed an agreement to be bought by medical device giant Medtronic plc for $1.8 billion. “We filed Intersect’s early provisional [patent] applications,” Mayer said. “It fills me with a lot of pride to see them acquired now, and to have been there with them from what was just an idea to their first products to acquisition. You learn the business very deeply. Part of the valuation has to do with the portfolio you helped build.”

In other recent deals, Mayer has represented AtriCure, Inc. through its $300 million acquisition of SentreHEART, Inc., another company she advised—in this case, through its development of the Lariat Suture Delivery Device for use in patients with atrial fibrillation. Following the $300 million transaction in August 2019, she remained to oversee its patent prosecution, counseling and strategy work.

She advises Cellares Inc., an early stage maker of cell therapy gear as it develops its Cell Shuttle device to overcome manufacturing challenges so that life-saving therapies are affordable. In May 2021, the company closed a Series B round, bringing its total funding to $100 million. Mayer and the Cooley team lead the company’s patent counseling and prosecution matters.

And Mayer represents biotechnology company Demetrix in patent prosecution, counseling and strategy work in its exclusive licensing agreement with UC Berkeley for a breakthrough technology that allows for efficient cannabinoid production. Demetrix has raised $50 million through a Series A round to help produce cannabinoids to pharmaceutical, supplement and consumer product companies.

For Mayer, patent strategy is an important part of her work for clients. “Marrying the understanding of patent law with the client’s business model leads me to ask a lot of questions about products,” she said. “A lot of people say they want to be strategists but they don’t want to do the day-to-day. You can’t put forward a patent portfolio unless you understand the marketplace.”

– John Roemer