Photo of Christine G. Espino

Christine is a senior counsel in the Litigation Department, and a member of the Life Sciences Patent practice. She works with pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients at all stages of product development, from early-stage R&D through clinical trials and product commercialization. She brings the dual perspectives of scientist and attorney to her role as counsel on US and foreign patent prosecution, post-grant proceedings, transactional due diligence, and freedom-to-operate and patentability analyses.

Prior to joining Proskauer Christine worked as an intellectual property associate at two leading Boston law firms, where she worked with large academic, institutional and corporate clients in all phases of product development and patent prosecution strategy. She drafted and prosecuted U.S. and foreign patent applications, assisted in due diligence for financing, and conducted freedom-to-operate and patentability analyses in the life sciences area.

Christine’s technical experience includes small molecules, pharmaceutical formulations, crystalline polymorphs, polymers for drug delivery, and protein-drug and antibody-drug conjugates. She performed her post-doctoral research in organic and polymer chemistry at M.I.T., where she developed transition-metal mediated strategies for preparing novel conjugated polymers and extended aromatic structures. As a graduate research fellow at Stanford University, Christine developed a new methodology for synthesizing highly functionalized amine derivatives, which culminated in a novel, commercially available catalyst, Rh2(esp)2. As an undergraduate research assistant at Harvard University, she delineated the substrate scope of the enantioselective aluminum-catalyzed addition of HCN to imines as a route to non-natural a-amino acids.