After ramping up from a five-lawyer shop in the mid-1990s to a 90-plus-lawyer firm today, Hartford, Conn.-based intellectual property boutique Cantor Colburn is banking on new National Institutes of Health (NIH) patent contract work to boost its pharmaceutical group’s cachet.

Cantor is one of four firms that the NIH tapped this month for a 10-year contract, including a base year and nine option years, for patent work in the chemistry field. The NIH’s Office of Technology Transfer hires attorneys to help it patent technology developed at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the NIH and to make agreements between the agencies and licensees. Klarquist Sparkman of Portland, Ore.; Leydig, Voit & Mayer of Chicago; and Philadelphia’s Woodcock Washburn also won chemistry contracts.

Getting the nod from the NIH involved breaking into an inner circle of legacy firms that have previously done NIH contract work. Cantor and Denver’s Sheridan Ross are the only two new firms of seven on the NIH’s patent contract lists.

The NIH awarded biotechnology contracts to six firms in April: Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge of Boston; Klarquist Sparkman; Leydig Voit; Sheridan Ross; Townsend and Townsend and Crew of San Francisco; and Woodcock Washburn.

Edwards Angell and Leydig Voit also picked up licensing consultation practices in March.

Four firms ended up with multiple contracts: Edwards Angell; Klarquist Sparkman; Leydig Voit; and Woodcock Washburn.

Some of the legacy firms have NIH contract relationships stretching back to the early 1990s, including Townsend, according to San Francisco partner Guy Chambers. “It’s exciting, cutting-edge biotechnology and high-profile matters,” Chambers said.

The work is also frequently a $1 million revenue item in any given year, Chambers said.

For Cantor, the multimillion-dollar NIH contract is “significant not just in terms of dollars,” said Cantor’s co-managing partner Phil Colburn.

“NIH is a prestigious research institute,” Colburn said. “It adds a lot of credibility to our pharma practice to serve as an NIH patent services [law firm].”

Even before adding NIH to its roster, Cantor has grown enough during the past 15 years to take on work in Asia and Europe and open outposts in Alexandria, Va.; Atlanta; and Troy, Mich.

Cantor’s prior government legal work includes an assignment from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It also applied for small U.S. Army contracts that it didn’t win, Colburn said. “We are also looking at other government agencies to send in proposals to,” Colburn said. “We’re hoping the NIH award will help us land other contracts as well.”

The NIH work impresses Woodcock’s clients and potential clients, said Philadelphia partner John W. Caldwell. “We do not hide the fact that we represent the NIH under a bushel,” Caldwell said. “We’re happy to point to that as an example of our ability and expertise and competitiveness.”

Sheri Qualters can be reached at [email protected].