Life Sciences Law & Policy Center

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Applications for the Spring 2025 start-up cohort of the Berkeley IP Practicum are now open. Applications are due no later than November 15, 2024.  If you lead a start-up company that is interested in participating in the Berkeley IP Practicum for Spring 2025, please fill out the application at this link. More information about the Berkeley IP Practicum is available in the Berkeley IP Practicum tab below.

The Life Sciences Law & Policy Center at BCLT complements the world-class research taking place in our IP & Competition Center. The Center offers a unique forum for students, academics, practitioners, and companies to explore IP, innovation, and regulatory issues affecting the life science industry.

The Life Sciences Law & Policy Center was established in late 2021, and is led by inaugural director Allison Schmitt. Under her leadership, the Center has supported innovative research related to intellectual property protection for drug innovations, bioethics, FDA regulations, AI and healthcare data, and health data privacy regulations. The Center also runs a robust programming schedule, with events exploring cutting-edge IP, regulatory, and privacy issues impacting the life sciences industry. Finally, the Center has supported the development of a broad life sciences curriculum for Berkeley Law students, to prepare them for practice in these fast-changing and complex areas of the law.

The strength of the Life Sciences Law & Policy Center is its breadth of subject-matter expertise. The Director, Faculty, Fellows and Lecturers that drive and contribute to this Center are among the world’s leading experts on the unique issues impacting the life sciences and health care areas. Notably, this Center also analyzes the impacts that life sciences innovations are having on society, including the important issues of civil case management and criminal justice and social justice being researched in our Center for Technology, Justice & the Courts. The cross-pollination of this type of expertise provides a unique environment for education, research, and policy development.

BCLT hosts and sponsors academic-focused events and industry-focused events–most of which are open to the public at no charge. Be sure to check out the most recent news on the Life Sciences Law & Policy Center as well as BCLT’s upcoming events. As for past events, many of them are available on-demand–and free of charge–in our video library, B-CLE. The Events tab below lists all events sponsored by the Life Sciences Law & Policy Center since its inception in late 2021.