Christopher Gallo, Ph.D. is a director in Sterne Kessler’s Biotechnology & Chemical Practice Group. His practice focuses on patent litigation, post-grant proceedings, patent prosecution strategies, and patent counseling in the life sciences, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical spaces, including technologies such as cell and gene therapies, biologics and antibodies, small molecule drugs, molecular diagnostics, single-cell sequencing, synthetic biology, and clean technologies.
Leveraging his extensive technical background in biotechnology, Christopher advises clients spanning from early-stage start-ups to industry leaders in the life sciences and pharmaceutical markets on intellectual property issues arising during product research and development, product clearance, patent portfolio acquisitions, and patent enforcement proceedings. His work involves developing invalidity, noninfringement, design-around, and enforcement strategies, as well developing challenges to or defenses for patents in post-grant proceedings before the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and in Europe. Christopher also has significant experience handling patent litigation before federal courts, including litigations brought under the Hatch-Waxman Act and investigations before the United States International Trade Commission (ITC). He has additionally represented pharmaceutical companies in responding to Citizen Petitions filed with the United States Food & Drug Administration and in challenging the Food & Drug Administration’s decisions in federal court.
Prior to joining the firm, Christopher gained first-hand technical experience working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he investigated the role of RNA-protein complexes in regulating fertility and cell fate specification. His research involved cell and molecular biology techniques, as well as the biochemical isolation and purification of RNA-protein complexes. Christopher’s doctoral research focused on the role of nicotinamide in regulating gene silencing and lifespan in yeast.
- TwinStrand Biosciences, Inc. and the University of Washington v. Guardant Health, Inc., 21-cv-1126 (D. Del.) (part of team that secured TwinStrand and the University of Washington an $83.4 million trial verdict before a jury).
- Pfizer Inc. et al. v. Dexcel Pharma Technologies Limited, 23-cv-879 (D. Del.) (counsel for Dexcel in litigation concerning patents covering tafamidis and polymorphs thereof).
- Scale Biosciences, Inc. and Roche Sequencing Solutions, Inc. v. Parse Biosciences, Inc., 22-cv-1597 (D. Del.) (counsel for Parse in litigation concerning single-cell RNA sequencing products).
- Allergan, Inc. Revance Therapeutics, Inc. and PCI San Diego, Inc., 21-cv-1411 (D. Del.) (counsel for Revance and PCI in litigation concerning patents directed to botulinum toxin compositions).
- Guardant Health, Inc. v. University of Washington, IPR2022-00449, -00450, -00816, -00817, -01158, -01159, -01388 (counsel for the University of Washington over multiple inter partes reviews challenging the University of Washington’s patents directed to DNA sequencing methods).
- Takeda Vaccines, Inc. v. Valneva Austria GmbH, IPR2023-00354 (counsel for Takeda Vaccine’s in inter partes review challenging Valneva’s patent directed to Zika vaccines).
- Best Lawyers, “Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America” (2023 – 2026)
- J.D., The George Washington University Law School
- Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Virginia
- B.S., Biology, Pennsylvania State University
- District of Columbia
- Maryland
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
- U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
- United States Patent & Trademark Office
- American Intellectual Property Law Association
- PTAB Bar Association
- The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association
- Spanish