How Executives Can Enhance Their IP Strategy and Performance in Switzerland

Felix Addor serves as the Deputy Director General, General Counsel and Director of the Legal & International Affairs Division at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (Swiss Ministry of Justice), the federal agency in charge of all intellectual property matters in Switzerland (www.ige.ch). He has been responsible for legal and policy matters within the Swiss administration regarding all fields of intellectual property at national and international level since 2000. Among other things, he leads or instructs Swiss negotiating delegations in intellectual property related issues to the relevant international fora and in bi- and plurilateral negotiations. Since 2008, Dr Addor has been a Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Bern, too. He lectures on international negotiations as well as on all aspects of intellectual property law. Additionally, Dr Addor is a Lecturer in international negotiations at the Faculty of Law, University of Zurich, and a Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He has authored numerous articles, and he is a regular guest lecturer on a broad range of issues of intellectual property and negotiation aspects. He received a MLaw (magna cum laude) and a Dr. iur. (summa cum laude, awarded by the Professor Walther Hug Foundation) from the University of Bern, and he has been admitted to the Canton Bern State Bar since 1990.

(Photographer: ©Remo Eisner, 2018)

Christoph is an International Tax Director with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Switzerland. He holds a Master in Law degree from Zurich University and is a Swiss Certified Tax Expert.  
Christoph serves multinational clients - many of them from the UK - with regard to all kind of Swiss and international tax topics. 

He has more than 20 years of experience in international tax consulting and planning for Swiss and foreign multinational groups, including consultancy work in areas such as cross border transactions, migrations, acquisitions, general reorganizations and structure alignments, intragroup financing, mergers, value chain transformation and implementation of tax efficient structures. 

Dr. Thierry Calame is an expert in intellectual property matters, with a particular emphasis in patent law. He has vast experience as counsel in patent, trademark, unfair competition and copyright litigation as well as IP related arbitration. Thierry Calame also regularly sits as arbitrator in IP related arbitration. In addition, Thierry Calame advises on licensing, the intellectual property aspects of a wide range of other transactions as well as pharmaceutical law, including regulatory and advertising issues. He holds both a master’s degree in chemistry, and law. 

Thierry Calame is permanent lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property and has published on a wide range of intellectual property topics. He is the Immediate Past President of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW). From 2010 to 2014, he acted as Reporter General of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI). Since 2017, he has been a member of the board of directors of Innosuisse, the federal agency for science-based innovation.

Shayesteh Fürst-Ladani is the CEO and founder of SFL.

She leads the team at SFL and provides global strategic support for the development of healthcare products. Shayesteh is President of the not-for-profit Associations “Rare Disease Action Forum” (RDAF) as well as the “Medtech & Pharma Platform” (MPP).

Shayesteh has longstanding experience in formulating global regulatory strategy for drugs, orphan drugs, drug & device combination products, borderline products, medical devices, in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs).

She has extensive experience in negotiating companies’ interests at a senior level in meetings with regulators. Shayesteh has been involved in reviewing and assessing the impact of many European and US legislation.

She is a Special Coach for Regulatory Affairs at Innosuisse (the Swiss Innovation Agency). Shayesteh is a Lecturer in Regulatory Affairs at the IFAPP Academy, Kings College London and previously spent 7 years as an Adjunct Instructor for Regulatory Affairs at the George Washington University School of Medicines and Health Sciences. She is frequently invited as a speaker and/or chair in international conferences.

Before founding SFL, Shayesteh held senior positions as Head of Global Regulatory Affairs and Head of Regulatory Affairs for Development Products at various biotech and major pharmaceutical companies.

Shayesteh received her MSc in Microbiology from the University of Vienna, Austria and an MBA from the Open University Business School, Milton Keynes, UK.