Spotlight on

BioProcessing & Industrial BioTech

Making bioproducts is far from easy, often requiring an in-depth understanding of cellular culture dynamics, cell biology & metabolism, fluid dynamics, process engineering, bioreactor design, biochemical and dynamic aspects of purification processes, process control, and data driven modelling. This work is absolutely crucial, without bioprocessing there is no product!  Conversely, improvements in any aspect of bioprocessing can have enormous value as even small productivity or quality improvements to such high value products are impactful, and improvements can often apply to multiple products.  

Our advanced bioprocessing team has extensive experience obtaining and defending IP in this complex field, both in relation to upstream and downstream processes innovation. We have a multidisciplinary team that mirrors the complexity and diversity of technical expertise of our clients working in this field, including experts in cell biology and biochemistry and their specific implications to bioprocessing, traditional bioprocessing including running and optimising fermentation processes, data & AI driven analysis of bioprocesses including for monitoring, prediction and optimisation of bioprocesses, dynamical modelling of bioprocesses, process engineering, and bioreactor design. 

We work together across different technical fields to make sure that all aspects are properly considered, so that the value of your IP is maximised. We understand intimately the complex technical, practical and commercial realities of working in this high value, highly regulated industry. We have successfully defended high value patent portfolios in this field, as well as helped our clients navigate freedom to operate. We are experts in drafting for success in all aspects of upstream and downstream processes. 

Read our Blogs

Celebrating Women: A Toast to Connection

Celebrating Women: A Toast to Connection

by Frances Salisbury

We were thrilled to host the first event in our new Celebrating Women series at our London office at 8 Bishopsgate, an evening designed to bring together women working across life sciences to ...

UPC Weekly - Apple-scuse me? Intervening to protect confidential information

UPC Weekly - Apple-scuse me? Intervening to protect confidential information

by Matthew Naylor

2025 Week 39 New orders from the UPC Court of Appeal (CoA) this week bring together two running strands of case law at the UPC – the rules about confidentiality clubs and the hurdle for third parties ...

Recalibrating Innovation: Venture Capital’s Transformative Role in the 2025 WIPO Global Innovation Index (GII) Cluster Rankings

Recalibrating Innovation: Venture Capital’s Transformative Role in the 2025 WIPO Global Innovation Index (GII) Cluster Rankings

by Chloe Flower

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has released its 2025 Global Innovation Index (GII) Cluster Rankings, and this year’s edition introduces a pivotal shift in how innovation is ...

UPC Weekly - EPO oppositions and UPC opt-outs – what the numbers say

UPC Weekly - EPO oppositions and UPC opt-outs – what the numbers say

by Katherine Green

2025 Week 38 With our focus on the UPC, we’ve been reporting on cases where EPO oppositions and UPC actions are happening in parallel, particularly where the parties are able to play these ...

UPC Weekly - Doctrine of equivalence gets another airing at the UPC

UPC Weekly - Doctrine of equivalence gets another airing at the UPC

by Matthew Naylor

2025 Week 37 Various divisions of the UPC have been notably reluctant to set out their vision for a structured test for how infringement by equivalence should be assessed. Except the Local Division ...

Most Active Defendants in EPO Oppositions – 2024

Most Active Defendants in EPO Oppositions – 2024

by Katherine Green

Each year the European Patent Office (EPO) grants about 100,000 patents. Of these about 2-3% are opposed – meaning that a third party has formally filed a request that the EPO revoke the patent. This ...

Learn More

Bioprocessing & Industrial Biotechnology - Protecting Innovation

With the development of increasingly advanced therapeutics and other products - from vaccines and cell therapies to food products and biofuels - bioprocessing and industrial biotechnology are becoming more important than ever.

Developing and scaling up biotechnological processes can be technically challenging and require significant investment in research and development.

Patent protection enables to secure these advancements and creates a competitive advantage for the innovators in this field.  It  is no surprise that patents covering platform technologies in biotech manufacturing are highly valuable and often challenged  by third parties.

Our team has significant  experience in drafting and defending bioprocessing patents.  We have successfully defended patents protecting antibody manufacturing and processing methods, including in multi-opponent EPO opposition proceedings.

We understand the challenges associated with developing bioprocessing and manufacturing methods.  Inventions in this field often lie on great technical stories that involve creative solutions to technical problems that only arise, or become particularly acute during large scale industrial processes.  For example, the recognition of a previously unnoticed problem during early-stage development, such as the discovery that certain cell culture components are the cause for problematic visual characteristics in the bioproduct, or that surprising loss of intact antibody yield during scaled-up manufacture is due to specific redox reactions in the cell culture fluid following fermentation, or that purification methods successfully used at laboratory scale introduce undesirable impurities into product that needs to be overcome when purification is scaled-up.  The research leading to the recognition of these problems and the steps taken to solve them in an imaginative way may form the basis of a strong inventive story which is worthy of patent protection, but one where an understanding of bioprocessing is needed to properly draft the strong patent applications.

Forward Magazines Overlapping 8

Mewburn Ellis

FORWARD MAGAZINE

Mewburn Ellis Forward is a biannual publication that celebrates the best of innovation and exploration. Through its pages we hope to inform and entertain, but also to encourage discussion about the most compelling developments taking place in the scientific and entrepreneurial world. Along the way, we’ll engage with the IP challenges that international organisations face every day.