He is Peter Lawton, ex-legal counsel for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), who now runs his own company, called Opal IP. Lawton's previous work helped maintain and extend the lifespan of big sellers such as the antibiotic Augmentin and Paxil, an antidepressant, which literally added billions to GSK's top line. That expertise in patent law counts for a lot when it comes to licensing your technology to Big Pharma, said Theobald. "The people who win at this game are not the best re-formulaters; the people who win are the ones with the strongest patents," he explained.