Mediation as a Dispute Resolution Mechanism in High Tech Industry Collaborations: A Look at Pharma and Biotech

Jukka Muhonen, Director, Global Business Dev.& Alliance Management, Orion Corporation, Finland

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in the pharmaceuticals and biotech industries should be looked at - as much as a means for saving on legal cost and managing litigation risk - as a tool to preserve or increase value. The argument could likely be made also for many other high tech industries, especially if they involve long development and product life cycles and high risk and expense in product development. Given the author’s long experience from the pharmaceutical industry, this article deals with pharma and biotech and how ADR, and mediation in particular, can be harnessed to satisfy business and management objectives and to maximize value from commercial collaborations.

Jukka Muhonen is a lawyer (Master of Laws, University of Helsinki -94; LL.M., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -96) and MBA (Henley Business School -09) by training, Jukka V. Muhonen holds some 20 years of experience in dealing with a variety of legal, commercial and corporate issues in high tech industries. During his 16 years in the pharmaceutical industry he has lead a number of different expert organizations at Orion Corporation, Espoo, Finland, including a long tenure as Orion Corporation’s Head of Legal and IPR. For the past six years he has been responsible for the Global Business Development and Alliance Management operations at Orion. Through his varied global practice ranging from law and intellectual property to business development, licensing and alliance management he has developed extensive experience in both building, managing and restructuring commercial collaboration relationships. He is also a CEDR accredited mediator. He prides in being solution oriented and a respected and trusted negotiator and partner for his various constituencies, whether for finding new value through partnering and collaborations or reasoned outcomes in any collaboration and/or contracting challenge.

Orion Corporation is a mid-sized pharmaceutical company founded in 1917 and headqurtered in Finland with a turnover of over 1 billion Euros in 2013 and with direct operations in Europe, whereas outside of Europe Orion operates through partnerships. For more, see www.orion.fi .