Justin Culbertson, Ph.D.

Justin Culbertson helps innovators in the chemical, pharmaceutical, life science, and dietary supplement industries turn their science into intellectual property that holds up under capital raises, diligence, and competitor challenges. He focuses on building patent portfolios that create durable enterprise value and real market exclusivity, not portfolios that look impressive on paper but get quietly designed around. Justin meets clients where they are, whether that means advising sophisticated in-house counsel or guiding a first-time founder through the process step by step.

Justin counsels both emerging and established companies. With startups, he builds core IP portfolios and helps clients navigate the complex patent landscapes surrounding their technologies. With established companies, he develops strategies to strengthen, leverage, and enforce existing assets. In either case, he begins with a question: is a client’s IP genuinely advancing the business, or simply sitting on a shelf? Clients value that he gives them a straight read on where they stand, including when the honest answer is that a portfolio needs rethinking or that a particular filing isn’t worth the spend.

A Ph.D. chemist by training, Justin understands the science behind a client’s innovations. His graduate research at the University of California, Davis centered on designing and evaluating small-molecule inhibitors of chorismate-utilizing enzymes, giving me hands-on depth in small-molecule synthesis, molecular biology, protein engineering, and x-ray crystallography. Earlier, at GlaxoSmithKline, he synthesized vaccine adjuvants. That experience helps him translate complex IP strategy into terms founders, scientists and C-suite executives can act on.

Justin’s counseling, opinion, and due-diligence work spans the chemical, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and biotechnology industries, with particular depth in:

• Pharmaceuticals & life sciences — small-molecule therapeutics, biopharma, diagnostics, next-generation sequencing, and molecular biology
• Chemicals, cosmetics & medical devices — toothpastes, dermal products, transdermal devices, medical dressings, and chemically infused medical devices
• Nutritional & dietary supplements — botanical extracts, bioactive compounds, and “medical foods”
• Functional foods, beverages & delivery systems — fortified and shelf-stable formulations, bioavailability enhancement, microencapsulation, and controlled-release technologies

He has built and managed global patent portfolios across more than 40 jurisdictions and regularly prepares the IP opinions and disclosures that carry public companies through financings, capital raises, and securities filings.

Outside of his practice, Justin is a lifelong teacher. He serves as an adjunct professor at the Long Island University School of Pharmacy, where he teaches “Patent Law and the Pharmaceutical Industry”—and he brings the same instinct to client work, breaking down complicated science and patent law so the people who need to act on it actually can.