Patent Engineer (Life Sciences) in London

The way companies innovate is broken. The systems built to create and protect ideas can’t keep up with the pace of change. Today, 90% of S&P 500 company value is intangible (e.g., in intellectual property) - yet R&D and IP teams spend half their time buried in manual work, sifting through patents and paperwork instead of pushing the frontier forward. The tools of creating and protecting are stuck in the past. We’re here to fix that. Ankar is building the R&D tools for the AI era and defining what applied research will look like in the next 20 years. We’re building infrastructure and product experiences our customers rely on every day. You’ll translate messy, ambiguous problems into clean, dependable software—and you’ll do it at the cutting-edge of AI.

We’re looking for a patent professional with deep large-molecule life sciences expertise who can bridge product development, engineering and IP protection. You’ll work hands-on with pharmaceutical and biotech customers to design AI-powered patent solutions that understand the nuances of biologics—including antibodies, proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, vaccines and cell and gene therapies—and the conventions that govern their patent protection.

• Build life sciences-specific patent products: Partner with product and engineering teams to develop AI tools tailored to large-molecule patents—from protein and antibody sequence analysis to biologics claim generation, sequence-listing support and prior-art searching across life sciences databases.
• Embed with pharmaceutical and biotech customers: Work directly with in-house patent counsel and prosecution teams to design, prototype and deploy high-value proofs of concept for large-molecule patent workflows.
• Shape product development with biologics expertise: Translate complex large-molecule patent challenges into product requirements, ensuring our AI understands sequence data, CDR and epitope definitions, functional claim language, sequence variants, experimental data and biologics drafting conventions.
• Drive customer success in large-molecule patents: Lead technical sessions with patent professionals to ensure our products deliver measurable value across biologics patent portfolios.
• Identify emerging biologics patent opportunities: Recognize evolving needs across therapeutic antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, nucleic acid technologies, cell and gene therapies, biologics formulations and regulatory IP strategy.

What we’re looking for:

• Large-molecule patent expertise: At least two years of experience in biologics patent prosecution, pharmaceutical or biotech IP, or other large-molecule-focused patent work, with a strong understanding of the patent lifecycle from invention disclosure through prosecution, grant and enforcement.
• Technical life sciences foundation: Strong knowledge of molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology or a related discipline, including an understanding of protein and nucleic acid sequences, antibody structure and function, biologics development, and how these translate into patentable subject matter.
• Strong biologics drafting skills: Experience developing claim strategies for antibodies, proteins, nucleic acids or other biologic modalities, with an understanding of written-description, enablement, sequence-listing and functional-claiming requirements.
• Builder’s mindset: You thrive in ambiguity, iterate quickly on prototypes and enjoy creating order from complexity. You can move seamlessly between high-level patent strategy and detailed biologics claim construction.
• Extreme ownership: You anticipate problems, take responsibility for outcomes and consistently deliver. This is how you grow—and how we win.

(Bonus points): Experience at a patent law firm representing pharmaceutical or biotech clients; in-house patent counsel experience at a pharmaceutical or biotech company; expertise in emerging modalities such as antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, RNA therapeutics or cell and gene therapies; or an advanced life sciences degree combined with patent training.

This role is not for you if...

• You need a highly structured environment, a predefined playbook, regular working hours, or a schedule that never requires travel. We operate with high autonomy and ownership, expect our team to go above and beyond, be obsessed with our mission and thrive in ambiguity rather than wait for direction.
• You prefer long planning cycles and certainty before acting. We move quickly, ship often, and adapt based on customer feedback and new information.
• You want to manage the work rather than do the work. We're builders first, and everyone is expected to contribute directly to creating exceptional products.
• You take it personally when ideas are challenged, priorities shift, or work gets redirected. We care more about finding the right answer than defending a particular one.

What we put behind our people:

• Health Insurance: Full private health & dental coverage for you and your dependents.
• Pension: Flexible pension scheme with up to 5% employer matching on qualifying earnings.
• Food on us: Team lunches twice a week, plus dinner when working late in the office.
• Cycle to work: Green Commute initiative scheme (up to £3k) to help you get a new bike tax-free.
• Way we work: We combine deep, in-person collaboration (3 days/week in our Shoreditch office) with flexibility and trust. What matters is ownership, impact, and results, not where you work from.
• Visa sponsorship: Yes