John E. Wehrli, Ph.D., J.D. M.B.A.

Dr. John Wehrli is a shareholder in the San Diego office of Greenberg Traurig, where he leverages 41 years of professional experience as an award winning research scientist, inventor, company founder, public company executive, venture capitalist, and lawyer exclusively in the life sciences industry, having represented over 1,000 life science clients over his 31 year legal career, and has long been recognized as one of the top life science attorneys globally.

Dr. Wehrli has worked on a wide range of bet-the-company deals worth a total of over $135 billion. Two of those deals, for which he served as lead counsel, won the California Life Science Association’s Pantheon award for outstanding partnering deal of the year and another named by the Financial Times as one of the four most innovative corporate deals of the year (across all deal types and industries) in its annual most innovative lawyers report. He was named 2022 Lawyer of the Year in Biotechnology and Life Sciences by Best Lawyers and was named among the top 5 licensing lawyers in California by the Daily Journal in its 2011 Top 25 Biotech Lawyers in California report.

Practice Focus

Dr. Wehrli counsels life sciences companies, including Bio-AI, neurotechnology, space pharma/biotech, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, diagnostics, and medical device companies and their investors, in structuring and negotiating complex bet-the-company strategic intellectual property transactions, including strategic alliances, joint ventures, global partnering deals, collaborations, spinouts, and strategic mergers and acquisitions. He also consults in complex life science litigation. Over 90 percent of his strategic deals have been cross-border and he has extensive experience in Asia, Europe, and South America.

Legal, Government, and Industry Experience

Before joining Greenberg Trauig, Dr. Wehrli spent nearly 20 years as an equity partner for the life sciences practices of Latham & Watkins, Jones Day, and Wilson Sonsini, and as a patent litigation, patent prosecution, and technology transactions associate at Cooley before that. Dr. Wehrli also leverages his in-house and government legal experience, as well as industry experience as an entrepreneur and research scientist. This includes C-Suite experience as chief legal officer and corporate secretary at two public biotechnology/AI companies and as a patent and licensing associate at a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory. He is also a co-founder of several biotechnology/AI companies, and his scientific industry experience includes a decade as a research chemist and computational systems chemist and software engineer for Syntex/Roche.

Dr. Wehrli is also a neuroscience and artificial intelligence advisor to Lionheart Ventures, a law and neuroscience advisor to BrainMind and member of the funder and neuroethics working groups and invited delegate to Asilomar for the Brain and Mind, and is a contributor to the McNamara Lab affiliated with the department of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and the Rafik. B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering in Neuro, Brain, and Cognitive Sciences.

Scientific Experience and Training

Dr. Wehrli has a deep background in applying the tools of computational science and engineering, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and deep learning (DL); and mathematical modeling (predictive AI) to systems biology, chemistry, and neuroscience, having coded in over two dozen programming languages during his career. He is a GTC certified expert in both machine learning and AI and has additional professional certifications in biotechnology and pharmaceutical AI from MIT; AI in Healthcare from Harvard Medical School; systems biology from the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; biomathematics, bioinformatics and computational biology from UC Santa Cruz; mathematical and computational biostatistics (including fMRI statistics) from Johns Hopkins, and complex and nonlinear computational mathematics from the Santa Fe Institute.

Dr. Wehrli has hands-on technical experience in physical organic, analytical, and protein chemistry; drug delivery, robotics, neurophysiology (including functional neuroimaging); and in computational neuroscience, computational psychiatry, computational biology, computational chemistry, and computational pharmacokinetics. Dr. Wehrli is a co-inventor on numerous AI patents in drug design, and in screening and production of small molecule compound libraries. He is also co-inventor of the IDEA Predictive ADMET multilayered modular network differential prediction software, which was a pioneering product in predictive Bio-AI. He has therapeutic target experience in neurology and psychiatric disease (CNS), immunology, infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, and oncology. Dr. Wehrli co-authored the physical organic chemistry sections of new and supplemental drug applications (NDA's and sNDA’s) submitted to the FDA for calcium slow channel blocker Cardene (Nicardapine) and corticosteroid Lidex 0.05% ointment (Fluocinonide).”

Dr. Wehrli’s Ph.D. research focused on computational and behavioral neuroscience where he sought to identify and mathematically decompose novel phylogenetically proximate neurobiological, neuropsychological, and neurophysiological endophenotypes (deep endophenotyping) of behavioral phenotypes and polygenic genotypes of dopaminergic neural network systems, including polymorphic dopaminergic allelic genotypes. His research interests focus on using these validated endophenotypes to develop mathematical and neurocomputational mimetic and predictive AI models (using genetic algorithms, machine learning, and deep learning using multilayered artificial neural networks including overparameterized autoencoders, Bayesian nonparametric Dirichlet mixture models, and hidden Markov models) of behavioral phenotypes and deep phenotype dynamical systems comprising neuropathological mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic neural networks in conjunction with qEEG/ERP-eLORETA spatiotemporal optimized computational neuroimaging.

Dr. Wehrli has been nominated for the prestigious Glushko Prize internationally recognizing outstanding interdisciplinary research and contributions to the field of cognitive science spanning neuroscience, computer science, and psychology.

Dr. Wehrli also conducted research related to neuropathological nigrostriatal and mesocortical dopaminergic neural networks in left-onset and right-onset Parkinson’s Disease as a core member of, and neuroscience specialist for, the PaRC Project Research Team under an FRSA and a $6.4 million research grant from the Templeton Foundation under Dr. Joel Goodin and Dr. Patrick McNamara from Northcentral University and the evolutionary neurobehavior lab of the department of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine.

Professional Involvement

Dr. Wehrli is a member of numerous legal, engineering, and scientific organizations including the Institute of Neurotechnology & Law and the International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law, and is currently Emeritus Member of the Dean’s Leadership Council for the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Wehrli immigrated to the United States from South America as a child and speaks Spanish and Japanese, in addition to English, and is a veteran of the United States Navy.

Concentrations

Life Science Segments

•Pharmaceuticals
•Biotechnology
•Neurotechnology
•Life Sciences Artificial Intelligence
•Space-Bio/Pharma
•Medical Devices/Surgical Robotics
•Diagnostics

International Complex Transactions

•Strategic Alliances
•Global Partnering
•Collaborations
•Co-Promotion/Co-Marketing
•International Joint Ventures
•Spinouts
•Mergers & Acquisitions
•Royalty Monetization
•Venture Capital/Capital Markets Life Science Due Diligence

Recognition & Leadership

Awards & Accolades

•The Daily Journal: “The Top 25 Biotech Lawyers in California” (including the top 5 licensing lawyers), 2011
•Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business . Named as a top life sciences attorney.
•Financial Times list of 'Most Innovative Lawyers'
•Best Lawyers in America,
•“Lawyer of the Year” Biotechnology and Life Sciences, 2022
•2018-2025, Biotechnology and Life Sciences
•The Legal 500 US, Life Sciences Tier 1
•LMG Life Sciences: 'Life Sciences Star' Europe and U.S.
•Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine's IAM Licensing 250 - The World's Leading Patent and Technology Licensing Practitioners guide
•Consistently recognized in Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine's IAM Patent 1000 - World's Leading Patent Practitioners guide
•Latin Lawyer 250, 2013
•Super Lawyers magazine, 'Northern California Super Lawyers,' 2014
•CALSUG Pioneer Award in Scientific Computing, 1992
•Who’s Who in Science & Engineering, 1996-Present
•Who’s Who in Life Sciences, 2000-Present
•Who’s Who in America, 1997-Present
•Who’s Who in the World, 1998-Present
•“The Angel Award” from California Lawyer magazine as one of the top 20 pro-bono lawyers in the state, 2007
•Advocate Award, Pro-Bono Project of Silicon Valley, 2007
•Distinguished Service Award, San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, 2013, 2024
•Outstanding Service Award, Legal Aid Society of San Diego, 2024