Biotech, MedTech, Life Sciences
Companies engaged in biotechnology, medical technology and the life sciences have unique challenges and sophisticated needs. The industry is experiencing explosive growth and faced with rapidly evolving regulations. At the same time, the discovery, development, and commercialization of new biotech and med tech products can be a long and complicated process that requires skilled negotiation and careful planning.
With in-depth experience in business, IP, health care, and FDA and other regulatory law, the attorneys in Jackson Walker's Life Sciences and Medical Technology Industry Team are well-equipped to help these companies succeed. Drawing on the strengths of several practice areas, the firm has assembled an interdisciplinary team with specific experience serving this dynamic industry. In fact, our attorneys currently represent more than 500 companies and more than 20 major national educational institutions involved in biotechnology and medical technology.
Our clients range from established multinational drug and device companies with blockbuster products to smaller biotech startups with their first viable products. By applying our understanding of the business concerns of both growing and mature companies, we are able to develop solutions that are customized to our clients' specific needs. We assist our medical technology clients in bringing products to market, financing growth, and meeting the demands of the global market. We also advise life sciences companies on both public and private equity and debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing and contracts, intellectual property protection, and government compliance (including FDA compliance), as well as day-to-day securities and corporate governance matters.
Technologies we represent include:
Funding and Liquidity
Our attorneys maintain close ties with venture capital funds and angel investors and regularly represent life sciences companies in the process of securing venture capital financing. We also represent venture capital funds and institutional and individual investors in their activities. Additionally, we have substantial experience with alternative funding sources such as the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and STTR and SBIR grants.
We regularly represent life sciences companies that are considering business combinations, such as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures, to achieve growth and diversity. These transactions include negotiated purchases and divestitures by public and private life sciences companies and strategic investment by biotech and medtech companies in emerging companies.
Strategic Alliances and Licensing
We assist many of our life sciences clients in structuring, negotiating and implementing strategic alliances with other pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies to optimize the capabilities for research, development and commercialization of new products, and to provide a mechanism to share risks and rewards, expertise and intellectual property. These transactions range from early-stage research platform deals to later-stage co-development and channel and joint marketing collaborations. We also assist our medtech and life sciences clients with a broad array of licensing, cross licensing and other strategic information and rights sharing relationships. The variety of transaction structures is extraordinary and the scope of legal problems typically encountered is often equally broad and require Jackson Walker's mulitidisciplinary approach. Our ability to act as a resource for legal services in a multitude of areas helps accomplish strategic alliances in a coordinated and efficient manner.
We also represent academic institutions that are out-licensing technology. For these organizations, technology transfer is a mechanism to leverage their own research programs, acquire external resources, further their overall academic goals and achieve a return. Our lawyers are experienced in prosecuting patents to protect their developments, licensing such technology, creating incubation environments, and formulating creative strategies that help our clients reach their goals.
Intellectual Property
To assist life sciences companies with the protection and exploitation of their intellectual property, the firm maintains a dedicated team of intellectual property attorneys led by industry veterans with significant experience securing and defending patent positions. Our team includes members with Ph.D.s and other advanced degrees who have experience as chemists, biologists, and genetics experts, in addition to decades of experience in the protection of new medical devices. Jackson Walker's intellectual property attorneys offer biotechnology and life sciences companies expertise in:
Regulatory
Jackson Walker attorneys regularly advise biotechnology and biomedical science companies on state and federal regulatory issues, such as FDA compliance and obtaining appropriate billing codes, relating to the development, approval, and use of various forms of biotechnology, including pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Additionally, we can guide a venture through the regulatory requirements related to the manufacture, adverse effect warnings, and labeling of such products.
Litigation
Jackson Walker attorneys also are equipped to advocate on behalf of our biotechnology and medical technology clients in both litigation and pre-litigation resolution contexts. This experience encompasses IP litigation; joint venture, channel partner and other commercial disputes; and regulatory advocacy. We believe that many disputes can be resolved using alternative dispute resolution techniques, thereby reducing costs and preserving our clients' time, energy, and resources for the important concern of running their lives and businesses. However, when the need arises, our attorneys' years of courtroom experience allow them to aggressively and honorably pursue our clients' interests in all of the above aspects of biotechnology.
>> Click here to read about Jackson Walker's related Litigation practice
Recent Engagements
- Represented HealthTronics, Inc. (HTRN) in the $20 million acquisition of Endocare Inc. (ENDP) by tender offer
- Represented a medical information technology company in a $40 million merger and sale to a private equity fund
- Represented institutional investors in over $1 billion aggregate commitments to private equity funds
- Represented a public health care and manufacturing company in its acquisitions of publicly-traded competitors
- Represented life sciences and medical technology companies with private placements
- Represented a public health care and manufacturing company in multiple acquisitions of urology services companies
- Represented a public health care and manufacturing company in the sale of one of its health care services divisions
- Represented a $300 million private equity fund in its formation and fundraising activities and currently represent this fund in its investment activities
- Represented private equity investors in the $100 million equity and debt financing of limited partnership with MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Represented educational institutions on incubation, intellectual property and other research and commercialization matters
- Represented numerous recipients of funding from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund
Awards & Recognition
Our life science and biotechnology team is globally recognized.
- Our focus on our clients has led to honors such as being listed on BTI's honor rolls of "Best Performing Law Firms" and "Law Firms Best at Client Service."
- Corporate Counsel magazine recently selected Jackson Walker as a "Go-To Law Firm for Technology Companies" in the areas of Intellectual Property and Litigation.
- Health Care group ranked for Health Care practice in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business guide.
- Medicine E-Learning named a team member's blog as the #1 blog for general HIPAA information. The blog was spotlighted for having "Interesting news and information related to HIPAA and the health care industry in general."
Areas of Practice
