Azatuhi Ayrikyan is the head of intellectual property at Astraveus, a Paris-based startup whose mission is the development of a benchtop cell factory to make cell and gene therapy more accessible. At Astraveus, Dr Ayrikyan is responsible for all aspects of IP, including patent portfolio development, trademark registration, trade secret management, IP risk mitigation, and valuation of IP assets. From 2022-2024, Dr Ayrikyan served as the first intellectual property manager of Calyxia,a deeptech startup developing biodegradable microcapsules with the mission of reducing environmental microplastics. From 2018 to 2022, she was the patent manager of the new ventures division of R&D at Schott AG, a global company specialised in technical glass. Before working in the industry, she held multiple research roles as a materials scientist specialized in piezoelectrics. In parallel to her scientific work, she supported both startups and multinational companies in a variety of consulting roles, including commercialisation and patent strategy development.