James Horgan is Assistant Managing Counsel at Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA. He heads the European Patent Department based in the United Kingdom. He has a degree in chemistry and has practiced extensively in the pharmaceutical, vaccine and biotechnological fields for over 20 years supporting research sites in England and Italy. He has wide experience of prosecuting applications before the EPO where he appears in ex parte and inter partes Oral Proceedings. He has filed and prosecuted a large number of SPCs. He has been involved in major multi-jurisdictional litigation for Merck in cases in the UK, Sweden, Belgium Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, France and Malaysia relating to Vioxx, Fosamax, Cosopt, Propecia, Rebetol, Isentress and Inegy as well as in the parallel import case Merck Canada Inc. and Merck Sharp & Dohme Ltd. v Sigma Pharmaceuticals plc, SPC cases Merck Sharp v Comptroller-General C-567/16,  E-05/17 - Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v the Icelandic Patent Office (Einkaleyfastofan) and the leading Dutch Supreme Court case on second medical use patent infringement and contributory infringement Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v Teva B.V..

He has completed an LLM in Intellectual Property Litigation through Nottingham Trent University. James is involved in IP policy issues via the IP Federation, where he was President in 2017-18, EFPIA, IFPMA and Business Europe. He sits on the Board Sponsored Committee for Innovation of EFPIA. He is currently very involved in issues relating to SPCs on an EU level and in all things IP related to Brexit. He has been included in the IAM list of the World’s 300 Leading IP Strategists employed in industry since its inception in 2015, and is also one of Managing Intellectual Property’s Corporate IP Stars. The European Patent Department of MSD was awarded best in-house patent department in the International Life Sciences Awards 2017 by Global Health & Pharma Magazine.