Robert A. Aboud
Rob has deep expertise across a broad range of drug discovery, development & commercialization
deals in pharma/biotech strategic alliances and has served as Lead Counsel for several of
GlaxoSmithKline’s most prolific deal-making R&D units as Assistant General Counsel within GSK’s
Legal Department.
Experience
During his 12-year tenure at GSK, Rob has led the negotiation and completion of more than 50
major collaboration and licensing deals across a broad range of biotech as well as academic and
government entity partners, many of which have resulted in products that have been commercially
launched or that are currently in the late-stage GSK pipeline. Among these strategic partnerships are
GSK alliances with Human Genome Sciences, ChemoCentryx, Prosensa, Oncomed, Regulus,
Dynavax, Cellzome, Sirna, Chroma, Targacept, Astex and Concert, and with academic entities such
as Harvard, Stanford, and U. Penn, among many others. Rob was a leader in the design and
successful implementation of GSK’s option-based deal approach to externalize a major portion of its
drug discovery and development efforts through strategic partnerships with world-class biotech
companies.
Rob has also been Lead Counsel on cutting-edge special projects within GSK, such as its innovative
formation in 2009 of Cambridge-based Tempero Pharmaceuticals, the first of its kind formation from
scratch by a big pharma of a biotech with external founders, the acquisition and integration of
Waltham-based Praecis Pharmaceuticals in a novel pilot deal linked to an M&A structure in 2006,
which transformed GSK’s internal drug discovery organization, and GSK’s ground-breaking 3-way
gene therapy deal in 2010 with the Telethon Institute of Gene Therapy and the Hospital San
Raffaele of Milan, Italy.
Rob has been a trusted advisor to GSK R&D Senior Leadership as a member of the Leadership
Teams for GSK’s Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD) and GSK’s ImmunoInflammation unit, and as Lead Counsel and Company Secretary working closely with the Board of
Directors of Tempero Pharmaceuticals. Rob has worked closely with numerous VC funds as lead
investors in GSK’s broad portfolio of biotech partnerships and has a strong understanding of the
needs and life cycle of VC-backed biotechs. In addition to his role as Assistant General Counsel,
Rob has most recently held the role of Vice President, Head of Business Strategy for the CEEDD,
where he was accountable for devising and implementing creative pilot deal structures, an example
of which is the CEEDD’s 2012 deal with the Japanese biotech PeptiDream, Inc., and for managing
the CEEDD’s global operations and deal budget.
Prior to GSK, Rob was a Patent Attorney at the Philadelphia-based Intellectual Property Department
of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP, where Rob drafted and prosecuted patent applications
and conducted freedom-of-operation analyses for biotech, pharma and academic clients in the
molecular biology, biochemistry and chemical arts.
Rob started his scientific career as a Research Biochemist at Merck & Co., Inc. where he developed
analytical assays and process purification steps for several of Merck’s recombinant protein and
vaccine products, and is a co-author on several process purification and analytical assay patents
and publications. Rob developed and successfully transferred to commercial manufacture an anion
exchange purification step in the commercial purification process for Merck’s VAQTA™ Hepatitis A
vaccine and an analytical assay for Merck’s Gardasil™ HPV vaccine.
Rob is a Registered Patent Attorney.