IP & Licensing Manager: King’s College London

Job Description

King’s College London is seeking an Intellectual Property (IP) & Licensing Manager to join an existing IP & Licensing team responsible for the identification, prosecution, marketing and transaction of IP assets arising from research undertaken at King’s College London. We are particularly interested in candidates with knowledge of medtech, biomedical imaging, robotics and healthcare engineering and the role will be closely focussed on activities in the School of Biomedidal Engineering and Imaging Sciences.  

The IP & Licensing Manager will work with academic staff to ensure that intellectual property is identified, managed, translated and/or commercialised to produce impactful outcomes. 

A key part of the role will be resolving complex due diligence, monitoring and commercialisation issues that require detailed analysis of technical, contractual, stakeholder and commercial factors. The innovation ecosystem at King’s is a complex system so the successful candidate will need to be comfortable working in a dynamic network of other members of the IP & Licensing team, colleagues throughout the King’s innovation ecosystem, research teams, internal and third party patent and legal management specialists and commercial partners. 

Successful candidates will be expected to plan, execute and report on their activities at a very high performance standard, reporting directly to the Director of IP & Licensing. 

The ideal candidate will bring significant experience of IP management and commercialisation.  He/she will combine strong strategic and project management capabilities with diplomacy, negotiation skills and an ability to work to exceptional quality standards in delivering performance. 

This post will be offered on an indefinite contract .

This is a full-time post -100% full time equivalent

Key Responsibilities 

Communication and Networking 

• They will deliver marketing strategy and activities set in conjunction with the Marketing and Licensing Manager and will be accountable for delivery of marketing performance indicators to the Marketing and Licensing Manager and the Director IP & Licensing. 
• The job holder will be expected to regularly communicate information in a clear and precise way to the Director IP&L, the Marketing and Licensing Manager and the IP Administration Managers and be responsible for ensuring accurate and timely input of project information into the Inteum/Minuet database.  
• To produce written reports on progress against targets, as may from time to time be specified by the Director. 
• Remain the main point of contact for third parties whose rights KCL is commercialising along with its own. 
• To assist other colleagues in RMID in conducting IP landscape assessments and FTO searches in support of translational research funding applications relating to IP assets under management by the IP&L Manager. 

Decision making, planning and problem solving 

• They will develop and implement operational plans for identifying, managing, developing and commercialising research results from departments designated by the Director and deliver key performance indicators agreed with the Director IP&L. 
• They will deliver their own key performance indicators by managing their own workload and resources prioritising these in order to achieve their objectives. 
• They shall be responsible for submitting quality information to the New IP Committee and the Commercialisation Committee.  

Service Delivery 

• To work alongside existing IP & L Managers to assess, in research departments designated by the Director the commercial potential of identified or disclosed IP opportunities. 
• To construct proposals detailing the commercial potential or value-building pathway of IP opportunities (including both internal and external proof of concept funding, licensing and spin-out activity) and present such recommendations at the New IP Committee. 
• They will have and maintain a comprehensive knowledge of all relevant systems, processes, policies, procedures, internal and external regulations, legislation and quality standards appropriate for their area of responsibility. 
• Responsibility for contributing to driving an increase in new IP disclosures from their relevant research departments. 
• Develop term sheets for commercial opportunities being pursued including rationales and chosen models for asset valuation. Present term sheets to the Commercialisation Committee in a format and timepoint designated by the Director. 
• Negotiate and transact (observing any delegated signature authority policies that might be in force from time to time) appropriate agreements to enact the agreed term sheets and liaise with external legal counsel as required and approved by the Director. 
• Undertake post deal monitoring of agreement obligations – both “in” from third parties and “out” to third parties – to ensure compliance both internally and externally and regularly review income milestones to ensure that monies owed by third parties are received on time and records updated accordingly. 

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.  

Skills, knowledge, and experience

• PhD in a medtech related discipline                                               
• Understanding of routes of commercialisation, including licensing, spin-out and proof of concept funding.  
• Detailed experience with intellectual property protection, prosecution and maintenance and administration. 
• Experience with drafting and negotiating legal agreements and familiarity with contract law. 
• Familiarity with determining commercial potential of intellectual property in the Medtech field. 

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of marketing techniques and market research and a highly developed network of licensee and investor contacts which they can evidence. 
• Sales skills. Strong written and verbal communication skills to convey outcomes of work.  
• Understanding of financial aspects of business and markets, and ability to structure and develop commercial models using spreadsheets. 
• They will have an inventory of past transaction examples of financial significance in which they led or significantly assisted.   
• Financial valuation of IP assets using a variety of valuation tools  
• Market research – techniques for searching on the web and other resources for information and individuals. 
• To carry out such other duties consistent with the post as directed by the Director of IP and Licensing. including the use of Inteum/Minuet or other database software as a project management tool, to the standards that will be set time to time by the Director. 

  Desirable criteria

• Ability to perform valuations (eg RA-DCF) to support alliance, partnering and other deal structuring activities. 
• Experience in industry in relevant medtech areas.  
• They will have had experience of managing teams and responsibility for organising a resource to deliver a strategy. 

Salary:  upto £65,318 per annum,  including London Weighting Allowance