Jeffrey E. Depp

Jeff is a registered patent attorney and an intellectual property and innovation policy professional with a unique combination of training and real-world experience.  Jeff has done policy work for trade organizations, professional societies and other organizations.  He has worked in university technology transfer, the pharmaceutical industry, the law, and the federal courts.  Jeff is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA).  His dissertation consists of an analysis of the current state of U.S. innovation from an Austrian economics perspective.  His broader research interests include innovation policy at the intersection of economics, intellectual property (IP) law and antitrust law.  In addition, he is currently a Thomas Edison Innovation Law and Policy Fellow at the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP²) in the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Jeff has a bachelor’s degree chemical and biomedical engineering with concentrations in molecular biology fermentation technology and from Carnegie Mellon.  He also has a master’s degree in industrial administration (business) from Carnegie Mellon where he concentrated on international management, marketing and finance.  He earned his law degree from the Duquesne University School of Law with a focus on intellectual property law.        

While working on his dissertation and other scholarship, Jeff remains active in the policy analysis and advocacy space serving as a consultant on innovation in the biopharmaceutical sector for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a member and former Chair of the Public Policy Legal Task Force (PPLTF) for the Association of University of Technology Managers (AUTM).  As chair, he led a team of more than 12 technology transfer and intellectual property law professionals in surveying the ever-changing policy landscape and looking for issues which will impact AUTM and its members.  When found, the PPLTF analyzes the issue and prepares a recommended action for the board.  This action generally takes the form of an amicus brief on a pending appellate court case, a response to an agency request or policy proposal, or comments on pending legislation.

Jeff was formerly a Senior Director for Intellectual Property in the Advocacy & Strategic Alliances group at PhRMA. There he was responsible for building advocacy and driving engagement among stakeholder groups on intellectual property matters of interest to the member companies.

Prior to joining PhRMA, Jeff was a Technology Commercialization Manager at the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute.  In this hybrid role, he served simultaneously as an alliance, project and licensing manager.  For six (6) years, he was responsible for the assessment of life science and healthcare information technologies, their intellectual property protection and their further development and licensing. He is conversant in technologies ranging from immuno-oncology and antibody therapeutics to AI-driven predictive diagnostics and NLP.   

Prior to joining the Innovation Institute, he spent time working for a federal district court judge focused primarily on intellectual property and intellectual property litigation.  He also worked for three (3) years at a small law firm drafting and negotiating various types of agreements.

Preceding his time working in the law, he spent over twenty-five (25) years in the pharmaceutical industry.  There he performed various roles in manufacturing, sales and marketing, and business and advocate development.