Dr Annabella Newton
- Senior Associate
MChem(Hons) MCommrclLaw PhD AMRSC MRACI GAICD

Annabella is a registered patent and trade marks attorney specialising in the chemical sciences. She is particularly interested in the strategic role of intellectual property (IP) in the commercialisation process.

Annabella works with a range of clients including global corporations, SMEs, start-ups and individuals, assisting these clients by providing tailored IP advice aligned with their business objectives. She has experience handling large patent portfolios for multinational companies including prosecution, queries, assignments, licenses and amendments. She also provides infringement and validity, and strategic patenting advice. Annabella is familiar with patent legislation in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Europe, India and throughout South East Asia.

Annabella has extensive in-house experience, having been seconded to a leading Australian research organisation for several months as an IP Manager. During this time, Annabella assisted with management of the organisation’s patent portfolio, providing advice on the patentability of new research in line with the organisation’s commercial goals.

Annabella has many years’ research experience having worked in academia, industry and for CSIRO. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of East Anglia, majoring in organic synthesis and graduating with a Masters of Chemistry (Honours). She went on to study for her PhD in alkaloid natural product synthesis at the University of Nottingham. Her PhD research was sponsored by AstraZeneca and she spent four months seconded to their process chemistry team. In 2010, Annabella relocated to Melbourne to take up a postdoctoral fellowship at CSIRO, where she worked in collaboration with both University of Melbourne and University of Sydney. Her research career has produced several publications in high impact journals such as Chemical Science and the Journal of American Chemical Society.

Annabella has always been involved in the wider scientific community and is a member of the Steering Committees for both the Australian Science & Innovation Forum and Women in Science AUSTRALIA. She is also a past president of the RACI’s Women in Chemistry group.