Smita Bhutkarrecently joined the firm and assists the RKD chemical & pharmaceutical team in issues relating to patentability, infringement, freedom to operate, invalidation, prior art and structure searches and patent mapping. She has a Masters degree in chemistry and over 13 years of professional experience, 7 of which have been in the IP field. After working in the Organic Chemistry Division at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India, she went on to conduct research on anticancer drugs as a senior chemist at a major Indian pharmaceutical company. She also did a stint as a research student for a year at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. Thereafter, in 2006, she made the transition into the IP arena as a patent analyst at CSIR-URDIP (a Government of India organization).

Smita has postgraduate diplomas in Patent Law and in Cheminformatics.