A former top lawyer at Pfizer Inc. has returned to private practice at Venable after about nine years in-house.

Todd Halpern had been assistant general counsel for regulatory law at the pharmaceutical giant since 2009, after having served as senior corporate counsel for regulatory law for more than a year. He was of counsel at Venable for four years before going in-house at Pfizer.

Halpern has joined Venable's U.S. Food and Drug Administration practice in Washington, D.C. There, the self-described “FDA generalist, which seems like an oxymoron,” given the broad scope of the agency's regulatory authority, will counsel clients on “anything that is within the FDA's jurisdiction.”