Patricia Brooks

About Patricia Brooks

Patricia Brooks is a partner in Gowling WLG's Toronto office whose work centres on pharmaceuticals and health care. Clients bring Brooks questions about how drugs and devices are regulated and priced, from pre-clinical research and clinical testing right through to the post-marketing phase. Some of it's contract work, like clinical trial and research agreements. Some of it's about how a drug, biological, radiopharmaceutical or medical device can be promoted to doctors or the public. And some of it's about getting paid for, whether that means the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, a provincial formulary listing or reimbursement from private insurers.

Before law, Brooks trained as a research scientist. Brooks studied Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease at the molecular and cellular level as a postdoctoral fellow at U of T's Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. That came after a University of Toronto PhD in neurophysiology on how neurochemicals govern muscle activity during sleep, and biology degrees (an M.Sc. and an honours B.Sc.) from Queen's University. The research produced numerous scientific publications.

Today Brooks is a registered Canadian patent agent as well as a lawyer, and handles patent prosecution, freedom-to-operate analysis, and opinions on validity and infringement. Brooks was called to the Ontario bar in 2016 and has appeared before the Federal Court of Canada and the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board. Readers of the firm's insights will find Brooks's take on Health Canada's 2023 guidance separating health product advertising from other activities.

Health law was a thread through law school at the University of Toronto, too. Brooks won the Samuel and Clara Shime Prize for Achievement in Law and Medicine there, and volunteered through Pro Bono Students Canada with both the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board and the Medico-Legal Society of Toronto.