James Hatton KC

Practice Areas

Corporate & Commercial; Intellectual Property; International Trade; Technology; Life Sciences; Emerging Companies & Start-ups

Professional Memberships

Member of the Law Society of British Columbia

Member of the Canadian Bar Association

Work Highlights

Acted for Stemcell Technologies in its alliance with GE Healthcare granting an exclusive license to GE Healthcare of Stemcell’s T-Cell reagents to further enable development and manufacture of cellular immunotherapies.

Acted for Cyon Therapeutics in the Cyon Novartis alliance granting Cyon worldwide license to Novartis’ anti-PCSK9 antibody for use in systemic inflammatory response syndrome and for the prevention and treatment of sepsis.

Acted for Sitka Biopharma in the Sitka Cancer Research UK alliance to develop a new treatment to improve delivery of chemotherapy for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer in patients whose tumour has not yet penetrated into the muscle layer of the bladder wall.

Director of The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, a charity that educates, mentors and connects women entrepreneurs who are venturing into new business opportunities or ready to ramp up and grow their existing businesses.

Past president of The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society, remains an honorary life director of that organization.

Former director of the Central City Foundation. one of Vancouver’s oldest charitable organizations, established in 1907 by a group of citizens concerned about the number of homeless and hungry people living in the Gastown area of Vancouver.

Career

Called to the British Columbia Bar, 1986

Publications

The Best Lawyers in Canada (2024)

Lexpert Leading Lawyers in Canada (2023)

Lexpert Leading Technology and Health Sciences Lawyers (2023)

Best Lawyers “Lawyer of the Year” (Biotechnology Law) (2019)

Martindale-Hubbell Ranking (BV)

Education

Experience

James Hatton, KC, is a commercial solicitor with experience in assisting companies to exploit the value of their intellectual property assets and fund their development. James is the partner responsible for the Technology Group at Farris. He is listed in The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, Repeatedly Recommended in Technology Transactions and Life Sciences & Health. Best Lawyers recognizes James in the areas of biotechnology, corporate, intellectual property and technology law. Chambers ranks James nationwide in Life Sciences: Corporate Commercial. Transactions include acting for United Therapeutics in the United Therapeutics Lilly alliance, a US Licensing Executives Society’s Deal of Distinction award winner for the Healthcare Sector. He also acted for the Cardiome Merck alliance, one of the largest cardiovascular life sciences alliances in the world and the largest in the history of the Canadian life sciences industry. James is a former director for BC Hydro, Powerex, BC Tech Association, and The Forum for Women Entrepreneurs. He is an advisory board member for STEMCELL Technologies and past Chair of LifeSciences BC. He is a former member of the National Research Council of Canada and a former member of the board of governors of Royal Roads University.