Dr
Fergus
Manford

Experience

Fergus Manford is a Partner in the Life Sciences team at HGF. As a European Patent Attorney and Representative before the Unified Patent Court, with over two decades of in-house IP experience managing respiratory patents, Fergus advises respiratory companies seeking to develop nasal and pulmonary medicines.

Prior to joining HGF, Fergus served as Head of Intellectual Property for Leyden Labs where he established and prosecuted the company's IP strategy for the PanFlu and PanCov clinical programs. Previously, Fergus spent almost 16 years at the respiratory company, Vectura, specialising in pharmaceutical formulation patents. Whilst there, Fergus managed a global respiratory patent portfolio which involved numerous proceedings before the EPO’s Opposition Division and Boards of Appeal. Fergus has participated successfully in high-value cases, including several EPO oppositions which had parallel US and UK litigation proceedings. In particular, Fergus supported the company's successful US patent litigation relating to GlaxoSmithKline's Ellipta respiratory products, providing him with first-hand experience of high-value patent disputes.

Before qualifying as a respiratory patent attorney, Fergus completed a PhD in Inhalation Biopharmaceutics under Professor Ben Forbes at King's College London, following his earlier career as a respiratory formulation scientist at Vectura. This combination of industrial and academic experience developed not only a deep understanding of respiratory drug delivery technologies, but also an ability to recognise commercially valuable innovations. Fergus’ technical expertise spans pulmonary and nasal drug delivery, biologics including peptides, antibodies, vaccines, RNA technologies along with underpinning pharmaceutical formulations, for which he is a named inventor on several patent families.