Dr. Carol Laherty

Carol focuses her practice on formulating and executing patent and market exclusivity strategies consistent with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies' business goals. She has extensive experience in strategic patent counseling and patent portfolio management, preparation and worldwide prosecution of patent applications, intellectual property due diligence, freedom to operate analyses and legal opinions. In addition, Carol counsels investors and companies with respect to intellectual property issues related to potential investments, acquisitions and licensing and partnering opportunities.

Carol has experience in a wide range of technologies, including cellular and molecular biology, immunology, polypeptide and polynucleotide therapeutics, therapeutic antibodies, recombinant vaccines, gene therapy, stem cell therapeutics, diagnostics, drug formulations, drug delivery systems and cleantech biotechnologies. 

Carol is recognized as a leading patent lawyer by several legal directories including Best Lawyers, Chambers and IAM Patent 1000. In the latest edition of Chambers, Carol is noted “for her work advising pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on the management of their patent portfolios.” Clients praise her as “extremely knowledgeable and responsive on even the smallest matter."

Prior to joining Cooley, Carol was a partner at Seed Intellectual Property Law Group. As a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Vishva Dixit, Carol studied the role of the extracellular matrix in tumor metastasis and helped elucidate the molecular pathways governing apoptosis. She conducted post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Eisenman at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where she established the role of histone deacetylation in mammalian transcriptional repression and was elected a Leukemia Society of America Special Fellow.