Bob Bohrer is a Professor of Law at California Western School of Law where he has been a member of the faculty since 1982. He was one of the first full-time law teachers in the United States to concentrate on the emerging area of biotechnology law. His current research is focused on the way in which drug development and use is influenced by a number of areas of law, including FDA approval, patent law, insurance and reimbursement, and the First Amendment commercial speech doctrine.
Bob edited the book From Research to Revolution: Scientific, Business, and Legal Perspectives on the New Biotechnology (1987) and authored A Guide to Biotechnology Law and Business (Carolina Academic Press 2007). He served as Executive Editor of Biotechnology Law Report from 1999-2011. His blog posts also appeared in Health Affairs and Bill of Health. In addition to traditional law reviews, he has been published in Nature Biotechnology and TheNew England Journal of Medicine. (Correspondence). He chaired the Biolaw Section of the Association of American Law Schools in 2015-2016.
He received a B.A. from Haverford College, a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. A member of the Illinois Bar since 1974, he practiced in Chicago with Bell, Boyd & Lloyd before entering law teaching. While at California Western Bob developed an interdisciplinary program for lawyers, scientists, and business executives to explore issues of concern to the developing biotech industry, leading to his appointment as Director of Biotechnology Programs at the Center for Molecular Genetics of UCSD from 1992-1999.