About

John Ryan, general counsel and secretary of The Jackson Laboratory, is a well-rounded corporate and commercial lawyer with over 10 years of experience in the in-house sector, as well as a prior career in private practice. Originally a corporate and white collar crime lawyer at Duane Morris in Philadelphia, and a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York, Ryan is a stern litigator with a strong track record of success. He made a name for himself at Aramark, the managed services company, and turned around its fortunes after a serious negative litigation outcome. His next in-house role was at Unilife, the healthcare and laboratory research company, as senior vice president and general counsel, following its investigation by the Securities Exchange Commission. He transformed Unilife and brought it through this difficult period. Ryan was instrumental in bringing a transformational investment in the company with Amgen and the debt financier OrbiMed for a $90m licensing and investment in the company and related concessions in OrbiMed’s debt instruments. This and a following restructuring of the company propelled Ryan to take on a role as CEO at the company. In 2018, Ryan moved to his current role as general counsel and secretary at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbour, Maine. He leads a legal department that facilitates commercial and licensing arrangements, as well as corporate activities such as M&A, spin-offs, sponsored research projects and other commercial strategies to monetise the laboratories intellectual property. Ryan identifies that his greatest career achievements include, ‘building a world class organisation at Aramark, where we reduced outside counsel spend dramatically and modernised the legal department and built very strong relationships with our internal clients and integrated the legal department into the operations of the business. Second, successfully navigating the settlement of the whistle-blower litigation at Unilife, which allowed the company to refocus on customer programs. Third, being asked by our board at Unilife to step in at the leader of the organisation during a very difficult time and restoring a culture of integrity throughout the company’.