Dr. Jonathan Soderstrom is a chief licensing advisor in the New York office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He is also a member of the technology transactions and the patents and innovations practice groups. Jon has spent over 40 years managing the commercialization of intellectual property created at major public and private research institutions.

Under Jon’s leadership for 25-plus years, Yale Ventures (formerly known as Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research) helped form over 75 new ventures including Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Arvinas, NextCure, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, and Inozyme Pharma, which have collectively raised over $1 billion in professional venture capital.

In 2001, with his direction, Yale became the first university to monetize its intellectual property when it worked with Royalty Pharma to sell its royalty interest in Zerit®, the first FDA-approved drug to effectively treat HIV/AIDS. In 2007, his office created the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (formerly known as the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute) to help undergraduate, graduate, and professional school students at Yale to start scalable new ventures. Over 100 new ventures were formed that raised over $135 million in investment capital, including IsoPlexis. In 2009, together with seven other major research universities, Jon helped lead the formation of Osage University Partners to invest in the participation rights that universities acquire in their start-up ventures based on their intellectual property. In 2016, he helped create the Academic Venture Exchange designed to connect highly successful serial entrepreneurs with start-up opportunities at major research universities.

Earlier in his career, Jon served as a director of program development and externally sponsored research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he negotiated the first patent license and Cooperative Research and Development Agreements from a National Laboratory to a commercial partner.

Jon has served in a number of professional leadership positions and is well-known in his community and industry. In addition to his professional accomplishments, he was honored as the 87th “Point of Light” by President George H.W. Bush in March 1990 for volunteer work with low-income families in East Tennessee through the creation of Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties.