Dr. Bill Christiansen

Cooley advised Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in China, on its licensing of global rights (excluding Greater China) for the development, production and commercialization of three of its proprietary glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs to Hercules CM Newco, a newly established Delaware company.

Cooley advised ARCH Venture Partners, which co-led a $1 billion Series A funding round in Xaira Therapeutics. Partners Colleen Badgley, Danielle Naftulin and Dave Peinsipp led the Cooley team advising ARCH, a venture capital firm catalyzing discoveries that prevent, detect and cure disease.

Cooley advised Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, a leading global pharmaceutical company headquartered in China with a focus on research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of innovative and high-quality healthcare products, on its strategic collaboration and exclusive worldwide (excluding mainland China) license agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and global license agreement (excluding the Greater China region and Korea) with Elevar Therapeutics.

Cooley advised J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities and TD Cowen, representatives of the several underwriters, in the $1.27 billion follow-on offering by argenx SE, a global immunology company.

Cooley advised Asymchem, a Chinese-based contract development and manufacturing company serving the global pharmaceutical and biotech industry, on its definitive agreement to acquire Snapdragon Chemistry, a US-based chemical technology company. Partner Yiming Liu led the Cooley team.

As a result of the transaction, Asymchem will significantly expand its footprint in the US, offering customers a seamless path from preclinical process R&D through commercial current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) production. Snapdragon will operate as a stand-alone Asymchem division, and continue with its ongoing lab and manufacturing facility expansion for additional capacity to support larger, pilot-scale manufacturing in Waltham, Massachusetts.

"We believe continuous flow manufacturing is a revolutionary technology and represents the future of pharmaceutical production, not only generating advantages to process safety and cost, but also bringing tremendous environmental benefits," Hao Hong, chairman and CEO of Asymchem, said in a news release. "Asymchem has been deeply committed to flow chemistry technology development and its application expansion in the pharmaceutical industry for more than a decade. We are excited that this strategic acquisition will further strengthen our capabilities in continuous manufacturing, as well as broadening our service scope and client pool."