The University of New Hampshire School of Law launched an exciting new initiative with a kickoff celebration Thursday, Jan. 18, introducing “bioInnovation Research Collaboration and the Law,” an innovative course highlighting the intersection of health, intellectual property and business law. The course is a collaboration between UNH Law and industry partners, as the school teamed up with BioFabUSA and the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) to create a curriculum that addresses legal and regulatory issues in a rapidly-growing field.
Dean Kamen, who launched ARMI, was on hand to deliver opening remarks at the ceremony, speaking to the ongoing advances in regenerative tissue manufacturing and their potential impact on health and the New Hampshire economy.
The course is an inventive offering featuring contributions from law faculty in business, health and intellectual property focus areas, and will include insight and lectures from outside experts. Students will gain an understanding of a critical driver of the modern economy – the use of early-stage scientific research to create useful products – and will develop skills to identify and address the related legal and regulatory challenges.
“We are surrounded by innovators here in New Hampshire and around the world, and we train our students to be subject-matter experts and strategic thinkers,” said Megan Carpenter, Dean of UNH School of Law. Kamen expressed similar sentiments in his introductory remarks.
Students enrolled in the course “will survey legal issues critical to the translation of an invention to its commercialization as a biomedical product. Because commercializing biomedical research requires contributions from various disciplines (including biology, business, engineering, finance, law, and medicine) and involves legal issues from an array of specialties (including administrative law, antitrust law, company formation, contracts, ethics, FDA regulations, fiduciary duties, intellectual property, privacy law, and securities regulation) the course content will be dynamic and vary from week to week.”
As Lucy Hodder, Director of Health Law and Policy Programs at UNH, explained, “We will teach our students how to guide their clients to ‘yes’ and develop pathways to solutions in our health care and bio-innovation space.”
Students will gain a clear understanding of the bio-medical product development process, and navigate the issues facing companies seeking services from BioFabUSA and ARMI, as well those facing academia and the industry at large in developing these products.
With oversight from adjunct professor and UNH Law graduate Leslie Sullivan-Stacey, and input from UNH’s experienced faculty in intellectual property, business strategies, health and administrative law, each class will be organized by key topics essential to the field of translational research and development. Faculty will include experts who bring years of expertise in FDA regulation, research, medicine and ethics.
“This type of innovative course structure is what UNH School of Law does well,” Carpenter said. “We are excited to move forward with this collaborative and strategic initiative.”
