Ben Thorner is General Counsel and Chief Business Officer of Eikon Therapeutics, overseeing all legal matters and deal-making for the company.
Prior to joining Eikon, Ben served as Senior Vice President and Head of Business Development and Licensing for Merck Research Laboratories (MRL). In that role, Ben supervised all deal-making activities that contributed to the pipeline, which included discovery, technologies, preclinical and clinical stage deals as well as the MRL Ventures Fund. Before Merck, Ben served as Head of Transactions, Strategic Alliances, at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, leading a team of deal negotiators responsible for pre-proof-of-concept deals for Novartis’ therapeutics pipeline. Prior to Novartis, Ben held positions of increasing responsibility with Amgen in their legal and licensing organizations.
Before his industry career, Ben worked in private law practice providing counsel on strategic intellectual property issues, licensing agreements, strategic alliances and other corporate transactions. In addition, he served as clerk to the Honorable Randall R. Rader, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Ben holds a J.D. and master’s degree (biology) from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s from George Mason University.
