Sally Shorthose

Sally Shorthose is Of Counsel at Bird & Bird in London and one of the firm's most experienced intellectual property lawyers, specialising in transactional IP matters. Her practice focuses on Intellectual Property Law.

As a transactional IP lawyer, Sally provides advice on the protection and exploitation of IP rights, both in standalone transactions and as part of acquisition, divestment or investment activity. She leads the team delivering licensing, partnering and exploitation agreements, and research, development and marketing collaborations. She also advises clients on regulatory and "freedom to operate" issues, and manages significant due diligence matters. She is joint head of the International Life Sciences Regulatory Group.

Before joining Bird & Bird in 2006, Sally was head of IP & Life Sciences at another global law firm, after spending 11 years in-house, firstly as senior legal adviser at ICI/Zeneca and latterly as Legal Director of Novartis UK. This experience has given her significant insight into the need for pragmatic commercial advice.

She contributes to leading publications and edits The Guide to EU Pharmaceutical Regulatory Law (Kluwer Law International), written entirely by the team at Bird & Bird. She is a member of the Global Board of Bird & Bird.

Her recent experience includes advising Alkuri Global Acquisition Corporation on its $4.2 billion merger with Babylon Healthcare, advising Celltrion, Mirae Asset Capital and Premier Partners on the US$47 million series A financing of Iksuda Therapeutics, advising Norton Motorcycles on the international licensing of its novel engineering technology, and advising Weichai Power on a significant three-way collaboration with Bosch and Ceres Power involving a $750 million investment relating to the development of lithium fuel cell batteries.

She was named a Global Elite Thought Leader in the 2025 Who's Who Legal / Lexology Index Healthcare & Life Sciences report. She studied Law (LLB Hons) at the University of Manchester and completed the Law Society Finals at the College of Law, Lancaster Gate. She was admitted to the Law Society of England & Wales in 1988 and the Law Society of Ireland in 2017.