Life Sciences Transactions

We represent life sciences clients in the full array of mission-critical transactions, including licensings, strategic collaborations, financings, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Our clients range from startups to emerging biotechs and established global pharmaceutical companies, as well as venture capital, private equity, and investment banking firms focused on the life sciences industry.

Comprehensive Life Sciences Transactions

Our life sciences transactions team helps clients build, negotiate, and implement essential strategic partnerships with other pharmaceutical, biotech, and diagnostic companies, as well as the academic, government, and nonprofit sectors. We leverage our industry-specific experience to advise clients on transactions to research, develop, and commercialize products and technologies.

Services Across the Entire Transaction Lifecycle

Our life sciences transaction experience includes early-stage licensing and research deals, strategic development and commercialization collaborations, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and public offerings and other exit events. In the course of structuring and negotiating transactions, we offer an expansive range of legal services covering intellectual property, US Food and Drug Administration–related issues, antitrust, tax, and US and global governmental regulation. We assist clients with operational matters such as supply, distribution, clinical trial, and co-promotion agreements, as well as equity investment agreements. We also represent academic institutions and industry partners in licensing technology and sponsored research programs.

Learn more about our Life Sciences services.

Life Sciences M&A, Private Equity, and Venture Investments

Our lawyers represent life sciences companies on product-related acquisitions and divestitures as well as public and private M&A. We handle transactions of varying sizes and of all different types, including asset and stock purchases, tender offers, proxy contests, restructurings, leveraged buyouts, and going-private transactions. We also represent investment banks and commercial banks, venture capital firms, private equity firms, institutional lenders, independent director committees, and management groups in their M&A-related matters.

In addition, our team advises private equity and venture capital firms, as well as nonprofits, on fund formation and other investment vehicles, and we counsel pharmaceutical clients on their participation in these funds.

Learn more about our Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Equity, and Emerging Business & Technology services.

Who We Serve

Our clients run the gamut from startups and emerging companies to household names around the world, including:

17 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies
8 of the top 20 biotechnology companies
13 of the top 20 medical device companies

Accolades & Honors

Ranked, Life Sciences & Pharmaceutical Sector (International & Cross-Border), USA, Chambers Global (2020–2022)
Ranked, Life Sciences, Nationwide, Chambers USA (2014–2023)
Recommended, Healthcare: Life Sciences, The Legal 500 US (2014–2023)
Recommended, Licensing and Collaboration, LMG Life Sciences (2021, 2022)

Transactional Services

Early-Stage

Entity formation
Venture financing/Capital raise
Exit strategy such as M&A or IPO

M&A

Acquisitions, divestitures and investments including products
Corporate venture investments
Private equity/growth equity
Spinouts
Post-acquisition integration

Strategic Collaboration and Licenses

Cross-Border collaborations
Commercialization
Co-Promotion
Research and development

Financing

Royalty monetization
Equity financing

Operational Agreements

Manufacturing and supply
Clinical trial
Services
Distribution
Higher education/nonprofit/research organization

Capital Markets

IPOs, SPACs, direct listings, and PIPEs
Corporate governance

Select Matters Handled by Our Lawyers

Eli Lilly and Company in its agreement valued up to $494 million with Fauna Bio to apply Fauna's Convergence™ artificial intelligence platform to support preclinical drug discovery efforts in obesity
Eli Lilly and Company in its license and collaboration agreement valued up to $660 million with PRISM BioLab to discover small molecule inhibitors of a protein-protein interaction target selected by Eli Lilly utilizing PRISM's proprietary PepMetics® technology
Cellarity in its research collaboration with Novo Nordisk to create a small molecule therapy for metabolic dysfunction-associate steatohepatitis for a value of $532 million
Merck in its global development and commercialization agreement valued up to $22 billion for three of Daiichi Sankyo’s DXd antibody-drug conjugate candidates for the treatment of multiple solid tumors
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. in its collaboration and license agreement valued up to $372.5 million with Treventis Corp. for the further research, development, and commercialization of small molecules that target tau, a key protein in Alzheimer’s disease
Merck in its exclusive license and collaboration agreement with Kelun-Biotech valued up to $9.3 billion to develop investigational preclinical antibody-drug conjugates for cancer treatment
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. in its collaboration agreement with Sonoma Biotherapeutics for the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel regulatory T cell therapies for autoimmune diseases including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease
Eli Lilly in its collaboration and exclusive worldwide license agreement valued at over $1.1 billion with TRexBio for the development of novel therapies for immune-mediated disease treatment
Merck in its collaboration agreement valued up to $3.65 billion with Orna Therapeutics to discover, develop, and commercialize circular RNA (oRNA) therapies in multiple programs, including vaccines and therapeutics in the areas of infectious disease and oncology, as well as Merck’s $100 million Series B investment in Orna
GlaxoSmithKline in its license and option agreement with SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals in an exclusive, worldwide license and option agreement that focuses on inhibitors of Lp-PLA2, an enzyme that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases
Affini-T Therapeutics Inc. in its partnership with Metagenomi Inc. that will enable Affini-T’s next generation ex vivo T cell receptor cell therapies for solid tumor patients using Metagenomi’s novel proprietary gene editing systems
Merck & Co. in its collaboration and exclusive license agreement valued up to $936 million with Kelun-Biotech for the development, manufacture, and commercialization of an investigational antibody drug conjugate
Takeda in its strategic research and license collaboration valued up to $400 million with Evozyne Inc. to research and develop proteins for incorporation into next-generation gene therapies for up to four rare disease targets, as well as Evozyne receiving multi-millions dollar upfront and research funding payments
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. in its cross-border, multi-asset externalization transaction with Oak Hill Bio in which Takeda will receive an upfront payment, an ownership stake in Oak Hill Bio, and potential milestone and royalty payments in exchange for six acquired and licensed programs
Bristol Myers Squibb in its collaboration valued up to $3.1 billion with Eisai for the development and commercialization of MORAb-202, an antibody drug conjugate to treat advanced solid tumors, in Japan, China, the Asia-Pacific region, the United States, Canada, Europe, and Russia
GSK in its collaboration agreement valued up to $1.46 billion with Mersana Therapeutics to co-develop and commercialize XMT-2056, an Immunosynthen anti-drug conjugate targeting cancers
Bristol Myers Squibb in an exclusive license agreement valued up to $905 million with BridgeBio Pharma Inc. to develop and commercialize BBP-398, a potentially best-in-class SHP2 inhibitor, in oncology