Alexa Hansen

SAN FRANCISCO - Alexa R. Hansen describes herself as an "argumentative" child who loved science and always wanted to be a lawyer, so it's unsurprising that she ended up a Covington & Burling LLP partner and a patent litigator with an emphasis on pharmaceutical and biological patents. She's been at the firm since 2009.
Earlier, she was a bench chemist at Merck & Co., where she synthesized small molecule analogs and is named as an inventor on three patents herself. "We were targeting obesity reduction, and our project reached the preclinical candidate stage," she said.
Before that, during college, she worked in the technology transfer office at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "It was fascinating to me to learn how many patents are owned by the U.S. government and it was fulfilling to help transfer this knowledge to the private sector as a policy goal," Hansen said.
Her past reappeared in a recent case when she found herself cross-examining her undergraduate chemistry thesis advisor as part of a nine-day virtual patent trial in which she led a Covington team on behalf of Amgen Inc. The issue was the company's $2 billion psoriasis drug Otezla, which it acquired from Celgene Corp., and Amgen's claims against 19 generic pharmaceutical companies that applied to market generic copies of the drug. Amgen Inc. v. Sandoz Inc. et al., 3:18-cv-11026 (D. N.J., filed June 26, 2018).
Most of the companies settled before trial. The trial against the two non-settling defendants, Sandoz and Zydus Lifesciences Ltd., led to a 91-page opinion finding that they infringed Amgen's patents.
"Our chemical expert was a giant in the field, Dr. Stephen Davies, a professor emeritus from Oxford," Hansen said. "It was technically a little tricky making sure he looked good on the screen. Their expert was my former advisor. I felt a little bad because he's a good human being and I was trying to be nice -- but I demolished him."
Hansen said a perk is getting to interact with eminent scientists. "Perhaps it's one of the best parts, getting to work with giants."
Another chance came during her representation of biopharma giant UCB, Inc. in patent litigation against five generic drug companies that are seeking approval to make generic versions of UCB's epilepsy drug Briviact. The case is readying for trial in November. UCB, Inc. et al., v. Annora Pharma Private Ltd. et al., 1:20-cv- 00987 (D. Del., filed July 24, 2020).
"This time, our expert is a true giant, a Nobel chemist, Dr. Dave MacMillan of Princeton University," Hansen said. "Part of my job is to bounce ideas off him and prep him."
She added: "It's a lot of fun. Few professions let you keep your hand in what is going on in science this way."