Oct. 21, 2025

Professor Lietzan presents on pharmaceutical evergreening

Professor and Associate Dean Erika Lietzan spoke at a conference hosted by the EIRA Initiative and the Berkeley Policy Institute.  At the conference, entitled “Bringing Medicines to Life: How IP Impacts Innovation in the Life Sciences,” Professor Lietzan presented a new book chapter entitled “Evergreening’s Empirical Chasm.”  For more than two decades, policymakers have been told that pharmaceutical innovators companies engage in a practice that is called, disparagingly, “evergreening.” The basic idea is that companies introduce new versions of their drugs that have later expiring patents or regulatory exclusivity. This way, the claim goes, the companies effectively…

Oct. 16, 2025

Professor Lietzan presents at two French conferences

Earlier in October, Professor Erika Lietzan spoke at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France at a conference on the Regulation of Innovative Medical Therapies.  She presented an overview of U.S. regulation of cellular therapies, engineered tissue products, and gene therapy, and talked about how U.S. regulation differs from EU regulation of these products.  The next day, Professor Lietzan spoke on the same topic at a much larger conference, known as Innovative Therapies Days, which took place in Besancon, France.  Professor Lietzan writes extensively about U.S. regulation of biological products, and has published before on how U.S. and EU…

Aug. 27, 2025

Associate Dean Lietzan named to Best Lawyers list

For the 11th straight year, Erika Lietzan, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, William H. Pittman Professor of Law & Timothy J. Heinsz Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, was named a Best Lawyer in FDA Law and for the 16th straight year as a Best Lawyer in Biotechnology & Life Sciences Law for 2025.

Aug. 14, 2025

Associate Dean Lietzan publishes essay on the FDA’s tobacco-authorization authority

Erika Lietzan, associate dean for research and faculty development, published in essay in The Regulatory Review discussing the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling in favor of the FDA’s tobacco-authorization authority. In her essay, Dean Lietzan discussed that the USSC’s unanimous ruling held the precedent that the FDA had authority to authorize or deny tobacco companies’ abilities to market their products. Click here to read her full essay.

July 17, 2025

Professors Lietzan, Vacca, Conklin added to leadership team

University of Missouri School of Law Dean Paul Litton has announced three new appointments to his leadership team: Professor Erika Lietzan has been named Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development; Professor Ryan Vacca will serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; and Professor Carli Conklin will serve as Director of the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution. “I’m thrilled to add such accomplished scholars and teachers to our leadership team,” Dean Litton said. “Professor Lietzan brings an outstanding record of scholarship and mentoring to the position. She will support our first-rate scholars and foster a…

May 30, 2025

Professor Lietzan appointed to ACUS administrative committee

Professor Erika Lietzan has been appointed as the chair of the Committe on Administration & Management of the Administrative Conference of the United States(ACUS).  Her service in this capacity begins on July 1, 2025. ACUS is a federal agency tasked with identifying and promoting improvements in the efficiency, adequacy and fairness of the procedures by which federal agencies conduct regulatory programs, administer grants and benefits, protect the public interest and perform other essential governmental functions. Lietzan previously was a public member of ACUS and a member of a different committee. The committee she will be chairing considers issues that affect the efficiency…

May 28, 2025

Professor Lietzan presents at Food and Drug Law Institute annual meeting

Professor Erika Lietzan participated on a panel at the 2025 Food and Drug Law Institute Annual Conference examining the top cases in 2024-2025 that will affect FDA. On the panel, she spoke about the impact of the Supreme Court’s 2024 Loper Bright decision on the agency. Professor Lietzen is currently completing a paper on this topic as well.

April 17, 2025

Professor Lietzan wins Women’s Justice Award

Professor Erika Lietzan, the William H. Pittman and Timothy J. Heinsz Professor of Law at Mizzou Law, was honored this month with a 2025 Women’s Justice Award in the Public Service category. The Women’s Justice Awards are presented by Missouri Lawyers Media. They recognize women across Missouri who have demonstrated leadership, integrity, service, sacrifice and accomplishment in improving the quality of justice and exemplifying the highest ideals of the legal profession. The awards reach out to women in various segments of the legal community, including the bar, the bench, public office, business, academia, nonprofits and the state…

Jan. 6, 2025

Professor Lietzan speaks on new drug exclusivities at BRG Institute Webinar

Last month, Professor Erika Lietzan participated in a webinar hosted by the Eira Initiative, a new research initiative in biopharmaceutical innovation and entrepreneurship policy. The initiative, which is a project of the BRG Institute (founded and led by Prof. David Teece of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business), seeks to cultivate an international community of researchers committed to evidence-based approaches to assessing and developing public policies to facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship in the U.S. and global biopharmaceutical ecosystem.  The webinar — which featured a small panel of experts — presented the vision for this new initiative and discussed…

Dec. 16, 2024

Professor Lietzan participates in Biopharma Round table

On Nov. 22, Professor Erika Lietzan traveled to Washington, D.C. to participate in a “Biopharma Round table” hosted by the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (C-IP2) at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School.  This small invitation-only round table brought together a group of experts in economics and business, health policy and management, and intellectual property, as well as representatives of industry, and others, to discuss biopharmaceutical intellectual property policy issues, recent scholarship on those issues, and gaps in the scholarship.  Professor Lietzan is a senior scholar with C-IP2 and currently also serves as a distinguished…