Virginia A. Gibson, former Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, joins as a partner in the Philadelphia office and a member of the Litigation, Arbitration and Employment practice group.
Lynn Whipkey Mehler, former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Senior Counsel for Drugs, joins as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology practice group.
Gibson is a highly qualified investigation, litigation, and trial lawyer who has worked as a U.S. federal prosecutor for 24 years, serving most recently as the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania where she oversaw all healthcare and government fraud, among other matters. She has also served as First Assistant and Chief of the Civil Division in that office.
Prior to her work for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Gibson was with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, where she held the positions of First Assistant, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Civil Chief. Her tenures in both U.S. Attorneys’ Offices have placed her at the forefront of civil False Claims Act and qui tam enforcement as well as civil and criminal enforcement of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and other government fraud statutes. Gibson has played a central role in some of the largest and most significant pharmaceutical and medical device prosecutions the U.S. Department of Justice has undertaken in recent years.
Gibson has received numerous awards for her work from the Department of Justice and the Attorney General, including one she will receive on 6 December for a major pharmaceutical fraud matter. Other agencies, including the President’s (and the IG’s ) Council on Integrity and Efficiency, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations have recognized her fraud prosecutions.
Mehler has 12 years experience at the FDA, and served as one of the principal lawyers to the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). She was responsible for supervising the work of a number of lawyers. She has also counseled senior FDA officials on a broad range of legal issues involving federal regulation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology products, including drug safety, drug labeling, risk management, post-marketing studies and trials, and the federal regulation of controlled substances.
Hogan Lovells combines the breadth of business-oriented legal advice and high-quality service that clients have come to expect through working with its two founding firms – Hogan & Hartson and Lovells.