---
title: 'Head of Legal at Until'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-legal-until-bay-area-a15h6wha3f21'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-14'
---

# Head of Legal at Until

- **Company:** Until
- **Location:** Bay Area
- **Compensation:** $250k–$300k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-01-26
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/until/9f6a6c45-c8ec-495c-9c3f-6335be87aeff

## Job description

## About Until

Until is a moonshot company building a “pause button” for biology. Our near-term focus is organ-scale reversible cryopreservation: preserving donated organs at subzero temperatures without ice formation, then rewarming them uniformly for transplant. By solving this challenge, we are laying the foundation for whole-body reversible cryopreservation, giving patients a bridge to future cures.

To achieve our goal, we are assembling an interdisciplinary team to develop perfusion systems, cryoprotectant formulations, and vitrification and rewarming hardware. We envision a future where no transplantable organ is lost to logistics, and no terminal diagnosis is final because patients can safely wait for future medicine to arrive.

## Role Overview

This is a senior leadership role responsible for shaping Until’s legal, IP, and risk posture as the company moves toward the clinic. The Head of Legal will act as a strategic partner to the executive team, influencing core technical, commercial, and regulatory decisions.

## Key Responsibilities

- Own Until’s IP strategy across hardware, software, chemistry, and biology.
- Coordinate proactive FTO/Patentability searches with external IP counsel and translate results into clear strategic guidance for leadership.
- Manage outside patent counsel across prosecution, continuation strategy, and portfolio development.
- Partner closely with R&D and engineering to ensure technical iterations are reflected in IP filings and risk assessments.
- Maintain visibility into the competitive IP landscape, including competitor monitoring and potential licensing targets.
- Oversee protection of trade secrets, confidential know-how, and proprietary data across internal teams and external collaborators.
- Serve as the company’s internal legal lead, responsible for identifying, prioritizing, and mitigating legal risk across the organization.
- Own the interface with external corporate counsel on governance, financings, and corporate matters.
- Advise the executive team on legal considerations across product development, regulatory strategy, and commercialization.
- Partner with Regulatory and Clinical teams on legal risk and positioning related to FDA interactions, clinical studies, and labeling.
- Build and maintain lightweight, scalable legal processes appropriate for a fast-growing biotech company.
- Lead or support negotiation of licenses, sponsored research agreements, collaborations, and other types of strategic partnerships.
- Draft, review, and negotiate complex commercial agreements with a strong understanding of technical and IP implications.
- Ensure consistency, risk discipline, and speed across contracts as the company scales.
- Work closely with Strategy, Regulatory, and R&D to ensure legal posture is aligned with the company’s clinical and regulatory roadmap.
- Support diligence for partnerships, financings, and strategic transactions.
- Provide pragmatic, technically grounded legal advice to non-legal stakeholders.
- Support board-level legal matters and investor diligence, including preparation of legal risk summaries and IP positioning.
- Define the long-term legal function, including decisions around in-house versus external support and future hires.

Required Qualifications

- JD with 7+ years of relevant legal experience (law firm, in-house, or hybrid).
- Experience shaping IP strategy in novel or first-in-class technologies.
- Experience with continuation strategy, claim scope negotiation, and portfolio construction.
- Strong technical background with comfort engaging engineers, scientists, and inventors on complex technical systems.
- Experience negotiating and executing complex commercial, licensing, or sponsored research agreements.
- Ability to operate independently as the senior legal owner in a fast-moving startup environment.
- Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous legal risk into clear strategic options for leadership.
- Comfort making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information.

Strong Preferred

- Experience in biotech, medtech, deep tech, or another highly regulated technical domain.
- Prior in-house experience at a growth-stage company (e.g. as a first or second legal hire at a startup)
- Comfort working across hardware, software, and biological IP.
- Familiarity with legal considerations around clinical studies, investigational use, or regulated product development.

## About Until

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Until is building reversible cryopreservation technology to bank whole human organs, extending viability from hours to weeks or months, with the long-term goal of whole-body cryopreservation.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Privately Held)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2025
- **Founders**: Laura Deming (CEO, Co-founder) and Hunter Davis Ozawa (CSO, Co-founder)

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Biotechnology Research, Cryopreservation, Organ Preservation, Hibernation Science
- Target customers: Organ procurement organizations, transplant hospitals, and ultimately patients waiting for organ transplants (B2B with healthcare institutions)
- Mission or purpose statement: "Pressing pause on biological time, for those who need it most." The company aims to solve the organ procurement and matching problem by making donated organs last long enough to reach any patient in need.

## Products & Services
- **Reversible Cryopreservation for Whole Organs**: A technology that cools organs to -130°C using biocompatible cryoprotectants, then rewarms them without damage, turning hours of viability into weeks or months.
- **Cryoprotectant Discovery Engine**: A platform combining physics simulations and machine learning to screen over 250,000 candidate molecules for cryoprotective formulations that stay within a "Biocompatibility Budget" – preventing ice formation without harming cells.
- **Hibernation Research**: Exploratory work on inducing reversible metabolic arrest (hibernation-like states) in organisms, with potential applications in organ preservation and future whole-body suspension.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (private company, founded 2025)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – Not disclosed; headcount of 53 employees (as of early 2026) with 9.5% monthly growth and 29 active job postings.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly listed. The company is co-founded by Laura Deming, a noted longevity and biotech investor (founder of the Longevity Fund), which may signal strong investor connections.
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid hiring (29 open roles for a 53-person team, +31.8% quarterly job posting growth), high-throughput screening scale (2,903 formulations tested in Q2 2026 alone), and public progress on cryoprotectant discovery.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Combination of Physics Simulation and ML**: Their discovery engine screens millions of molecules in silico before wet-lab validation, dramatically accelerating cryoprotectant development.
- **Biocompatibility Budget Framework**: A novel approach that distributes cryoprotectant toxicity across multiple mechanisms, avoiding the single-dose toxicity that has stymied the field for 50 years.
- **Focus on Whole Organs (not just cells)**: Extending cryopreservation from small samples (IVF, stem cells) to whole human organs – a much harder problem with massive clinical impact.
- **Talent Philosophy**: "Proof of work" culture that hires for demonstrated ability over credentials, with fast promotion for those who earn it.

## Strategic Focus
- **Immediate**: Scale up cryoprotectant discovery and validation to achieve reversible cryopreservation of a whole human organ (likely a kidney or heart) within the next few years.
- **Medium-term**: De-risk and build the foundation for whole-body reversible cryopreservation, enabling "a bridge to future cures" for patients with currently incurable conditions.
- **Talent Acquisition**: Aggressively hiring scientists, engineers, and operations staff across physics, biology, chemistry, and engineering disciplines to accelerate R&D.

## Why Work Here
- **Work Environment**: On-site in San Francisco (HQ). The work spans "the edge of physics, biology, and engineering" – from quantum-level simulations to handling real organs. Culture emphasizes "hard problems", rigor, and speed.
- **Culture**: Flat hierarchy, promotion on merit, "proof of work" over credentials. Team includes people from top universities and self-taught scientists alike.
- **Benefits**: Comprehensive medical/dental/vision, 401(k) via Guideline, unlimited PTO, paid parental and disability leave, on-site fitness center, catered lunch and dinner, plus snacks.
- **Engineering & Science**: Opportunity to work on cutting-edge cryobiology, nanotech, polymer chemistry, and high-throughput automation. The company uses AI tools in hiring but makes final human decisions.

## Sources
1. [untillabs.com/careers](https://www.untillabs.com/careers)
2. [untillabs.com](https://untillabs.com/)
3. [untillabs.com/our-team](https://www.untillabs.com/our-team)
4. [builtin.com/company/until-labs](https://builtin.com/company/until-labs)
5. [jobs.lever.co/until](https://jobs.lever.co/until)

## Other roles at Until

- [Senior / Staff Power Electronics Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-power-electronics-engineer-until-bay-area-5y9bjz922v89) — Bay Area
- [Electrical Engineer / Applied Physicist](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-applied-physicist-until-bay-area-kgcsag1hxzzk) — Bay Area
- [Mechanical Engineering, Design](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-engineering-design-until-bay-area-cbaa9hk1my9k) — Bay Area
- [Senior Scientist, Cardiac Preservation (Organ Perfusion)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-scientist-cardiac-preservation-organ-perfusion-until-bay-area-b452rfthhqkp) — Bay Area
- [Research Associate (Organ Perfusion)](https://feeny.ai/job/research-associate-organ-perfusion-until-bay-area-0b1srem75ztf) — Bay Area
- [Research Assistant, Materials Chemistry (Nanoparticles)](https://feeny.ai/job/research-assistant-materials-chemistry-nanoparticles-until-bay-area-3m7hw2phjy84) — Bay Area
- [Scientist/ Senior Scientist - Translational Cardiac Biology](https://feeny.ai/job/scientist-senior-scientist-translational-cardiac-biology-until-bay-area-4t7rwnr11n7h) — Bay Area
- [Research Associate, Hibernation](https://feeny.ai/job/research-associate-hibernation-until-bay-area-a9jr1rkbe83f) — Bay Area
- [Physics and Engineering Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/physics-and-engineering-technician-until-bay-area-csevrzjywfzk) — Bay Area
- [Sr. Mechanical Engineer, Fluidics/Perfusion](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-mechanical-engineer-fluidics-perfusion-until-bay-area-fkstk4p7d9q0) — Bay Area