Dr. Asako Kubota

Asako assists life sciences and pharmaceutical companies with developing worldwide patent strategies and maintaining robust patent portfolios. She has extensive experience in drafting, prosecuting and managing patent applications, with a particular emphasis on small-molecule pharmaceuticals that are in various stages of development.

Asako also has experience conducting invalidity/noninfringement, freedom to operate and patentability analyses and assisting company- and investor-side diligences, including fundraising.

Before joining Cooley, Asako was an associate scientist at Dow AgroSciences (now Corteva Agriscience) in Indianapolis, Indiana, working on discovery research for novel insecticides and fungicides. She gained substantial technical knowledge in crop management science, with a focus on technology and science involving insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and the process involved in developing a new pesticide – including research, biological assays, greenhouse testing, field testing and formulations.

Asako obtained her PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Michigan in professor Melanie Sanford’s laboratory, where her doctoral research focused on palladium-catalyzed oxidative functionalization reactions.

US patents

• Kubota, A. et al., (Corteva Agriscience), Pesticidal Compositions and Processes Related Thereto, US Patent No. 8,937,083
• Kubota, A. et al., (Corteva Agriscience), Pesticidal Compositions and Related Methods, US Patent No. 9,445,597
• Kubota, A. et al., (Corteva Agriscience), Pesticidal Compositions and Processes Related Thereto, US Patent No. 9,655,365
• Kubota, A. et al., (Corteva Agriscience), Pesticidal Compositions and Processes Related Thereto, US Patent No. 10,165,775

Publications

• Co-author, “Pyridine Ligands as Promoters in PdII/0-Catalyzed C–H Olefination Reactions,” Organic Letters, 2012
• Co-author, “Nitrate as a redox co-catalyst for the aerobic Pd-catalyzed oxidation of unactivated sp3-C–H bonds,” Chemical Science, 2012
• Co-author, “Palladium-Catalyzed 1,1-Aryloxygenation of Terminal Olefins,” Organic Letters, 2011 (highlighted in Synfacts, Issue 5, 2011)
• Co-author, “Palladium-Catalyzed Ligand-Directed Oxidative Functionalization of Cyclopropanes,” Synthesis, 2011 (invited contribution for a special issue on C–H activation)