Life Sciences

We routinely advise on complex cross-border and domestic transactions. Our clients range from start-ups to multinationals in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, drug discovery, genomics, diagnostics, medical devices, biosimilars, and digital health – as well as the life sciences industry’s most active investment banks, venture/growth capital firms and research institutions.

Our life sciences transaction lawyers enhance the development and commercialization of new technologies and scientific breakthroughs by negotiating mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs and joint ventures, advising on licensing options, partnerships and strategic alliances, and guiding clients through related antitrust and litigation issues. Our team efficiently delivers value to stakeholders by structuring commercially successful transactions, ensuring swift execution and protecting clients’ interests in all phases of the transaction. We also help clients structure capital to support the development and commercialization process, ranging from early-stage venture financings and strategic equity investments to complex public offerings of equity and debt.

During the planning phase, we work in multidisciplinary teams to analyze legal, tax and regulatory implications and conduct risk assessments. As companies prepare for transition, we, in close collaboration with our clients, facilitate the exploration of strategic alternatives and advise on competitive negotiations. A core aspect of our efforts is to support our clients’ teams in managing the details of closing transactions while simultaneously operating their businesses and advising on a range of integration issues.

We collaborate with Dechert specialists in tax, intellectual property, regulatory, antitrust, real estate, environmental, litigation and labor to provide clients with the full range of advisory expertise they need to get the deal done.  

When life sciences disputes arise, our cross-practice litigation team works to preserve clients’ interests, assets and reputations, obtaining successful outcomes in litigation and arbitrations across the globe. Drawing on our antitrust/competition, intellectual property, international arbitration, litigation, product liability, regulatory, securities and white collar defense lawyers, we provide comprehensive advice in the most complex life sciences disputes.

We regularly take on bet-the-company litigation for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. Our deep bench of trial lawyers are lead counsel in many of the most significant cases that challenge the healthcare and life sciences industry.

Dechert’s antitrust lawyers pilot deals through the Federal Trade Commission and European Commission, navigating competition investigations and defending private litigation, including class actions. Our IP practice has a dedicated small and large molecule patent litigation team with extensive experience in litigating Hatch-Waxman actions, 505(b)(2) New Drug Applications, and other patent disputes with generic drug statutory schemes, including Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) litigation. We defend our clients in product liability and consumer fraud claims of all kinds, drawing on the skills of one of the leading product liability practices in the U.S.

Our lawyers also have extensive experience representing life sciences companies in a broad range of securities litigation matters, including claims arising out of the development, commercialization, sale and marketing of pharmaceutical products. We advocate on behalf of clients in disputes, including in litigation and arbitration, arising out of licensing, collaboration, asset purchase and other agreements. We also advise life sciences companies and their boards, audit committees and executives through complex internal and external investigations and related civil litigation.

From defending branded products against generic challenges and coordinating mass tort defenses to protecting companies and their boards from challenges by shareholders, we guide clients through the entire array of contentious issues that arise in the life sciences sector.

Our intellectual property counseling team advises on strategies that achieve life sciences clients’ business goals while balancing risk through all stages of the product life cycle. Working alongside start-ups and multinationals in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and drug discovery – as well as the industry’s most active venture/growth capital firms and research institutions that fund them – we help clients assess business opportunities, avoid regulatory problems and keep their business momentum energetic and on track. 

Recognizing the dual imperative of maximizing patent portfolio value and aggressively protecting client products worldwide, we strive to enhance our clients’ value and afford them the strongest protection. Our services include strategic portfolio management and patent prosecution, IP due diligence associated with M&A deals, joint ventures and other commercial transactions, and post-grant and ex parte proceedings, including interferences, inter partes reviews, opinions, re-examinations, re-issues and oppositions.

Many members of our team hold a Ph.D. or other advanced degrees in the sciences and have either postdoctoral or industrial experience above and beyond their experience as lawyers, enhancing collaboration with our clients’ scientists, executives and legal teams.

• A strategic U.S. investor as lead investor on the US$325 million Series B financing round of BioNTech, one of the largest single private funding rounds for a biotechnology company in European history. The proceeds of the financing supported the continued advancement of BioNTech’s therapeutics pipeline and manufacturing infrastructure. 
• Antares Pharma in a putative securities class action alleging that Antares and its Board of Directors made materially false and misleading statements about the likelihood of obtaining FDA approval of its drug, XYOSTED® (testosterone enanthate). After prevailing on our motion to dismiss the first and second amended complaints, the Plaintiff filed a third amended complaint, attempting to assert a claim under Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and a control-person claim against the officer defendants for violation of Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act. Defendants again convinced the Court to dismiss the action in its entirety on the pleadings—this time with prejudice.
• ArchiMed, a European investment firm specialized in the Healthcare industries, in the partial sale of Polyplus-transfection, a developer of innovative and cost-effective technology used in gene and cell therapy, to Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm focused on growth investing, as well as on its reinvestment, alongside Warburg Pincus, in the Polyplus group. Dechert put together a team of experts who were able to advise ArchiMed on the many aspects of the deal, from the auction/M&A initial process, through the reinvestment alongside Warburg Pincus, which required strong PE and tax expertise, including also financing, antitrust and pharmaceutical regulatory expertise.
• Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A., an international, research-focused biopharmaceuticals group, it its US$1.48 billion acquisition of Amryt Pharma, a global, commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to acquiring, developing, and commercializing novel treatments for rare diseases. A cross-border, cross-practice Dechert team advised Chiesi in its definitive agreement to acquire Amryt Pharma in an all-cash transaction.
• CVS Health through a series of merger reviews and court proceedings to obtain approvals for its acquisition of health insurer Aetna Inc. in the largest healthcare merger in history. In 2018, the U.S. DOJ and five state AGs announced a settlement that allowed the US$70 billion combination to proceed. The agreement followed one of the broadest-ever merger investigations by the DOJ, 19 state AGs, 38 state insurance departments and Congress. Subsequent to the merger’s close, powerful opposition groups participated in a landmark legal challenge via the Tunney Act, which allows for judicial review to determine if a consent agreement is in the ‘public interest.’ Dechert’s antitrust team represented CVS in this unprecedented antitrust merger challenge and obtained a favorable ruling.
• Eli Lilly & Co. in a complete victory in Eli Lilly & Co. v. Genentech, Inc. (PTAB), a Post-Grant Review (PGR) proceeding before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Lilly’s innovative PGR challenge of Genentech’s patent was successfully instituted in late 2019, and was recognized in the industry as one of the first life sciences PGRs involving written description and enablement challenges to antibody technology in co-pending litigation with a marketed commercial biologic. Lilly successfully obtained an entry of adverse judgment against Genentech in 2020, rendering all claims unpatentable.
• Endo Pharmaceuticals, a global specialty pharmaceutical company, in a series of related Hatch-Waxman patent infringement actions filed against seven generic companies regarding its OPANA® ER (oxymorphone ER) tablets, which at its peak, was Endo’s second highest-selling product with US$300 million in annual sales. In Endo Pharmaceuticals v. Teva, et al. and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., et al., v. Impax Laboratories, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.), the Dechert team prevailed in a five-week trial against seven generic companies, and later secured Federal Circuit affirmance of its hard-fought patent trial victory, so that none of the generic versions of OPANA® ER (oxymorphone ER) involved can come to market before Endo’s patents expire in 2023. Dechert also prevailed in two separate patent trials in the District of Delaware with respect to an additional patent that Endo exclusively licensed from Mallinckrodt. The Federal Circuit affirmed that all defendants are enjoined from selling their generic products through 2029.
• Kymera Therapeutics in its up-to-US$2 billion multi-program, strategic collaboration with French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to develop and commercialize first-in-class protein degrader therapies targeting IRAK4 in patients with immune-inflammatory diseases. Dechert negotiated and drafted the very complex IP terms of the deal, including patent strategy and due diligence.
• Moderna Therapeutics in multiple licensing and partnering agreements, including its US$45 million strategic collaboration with Carisma Therapeutics to discover and develop vivo engineered chimeric antigen receptor monocyte, or CAR-M, therapeutics for cancer. Moderna’s oncology research deal with Carisma will pick up a dozen targets for development and commercialization.
• Pfizer as national counsel in the Lipitor multidistrict litigation (MDL), where 3,000+ plaintiffs alleged that a cholesterol-lowering medication caused them to develop Type 2 diabetes. Dechert’s Daubert strategy led to exclusion of plaintiffs’ experts on general causation grounds and the granting of summary judgment in all cases in the MDL. Following the Fourth Circuit’s unanimous affirmance, the MDL was closed in less than three years. Dechert subsequently obtained a similar victory in California Superior Court after the product was spun off from Pfizer to Viatris.
• Roche before the French Competition Authority (FCA) in landmark proceedings related to an alleged abuse of collective dominance with Novartis concerning the “off label use” of Roche’s oncology drug Avastin in the ophtalmic field. The FCA recently fined Novartis €385 million; Roche’s fine was significantly more limited, at €59.7 million. Dechert represents Roche for the appeal lodged before the Paris Court of Appeal.