Life Sciences Corporate Partnering and Licensing
Why Cooley
Breakthroughs happen with Cooley. At Cooley, we don’t just advise – we accelerate your achievements. Our collaborative approach draws upon unparalleled experience and our extensive industry network to drive strategic solutions and resolve challenges. With Cooley as your catalyst, you’re not just part of the digital health industry – you’re shaping it.
We have a dedicated team of 40+ corporate partnering and licensing lawyers, including senior team members who are internationally recognized as being the best in their field. Many of our lawyers are backed by a wealth of life sciences industry experience, having previously worked as pharmaceutical marketing specialists, business consultants, financial leaders, biotech researchers and in-house counsel at life sciences companies including Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Exelixis, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Merck.
We bring to bear decades of experience across a diverse range of transaction structures, territories, product stages and technologies, including highly structured transactions with other drivers such as equity or research and development investment, option and stage-acquisition rights, complex financing, and tax structure and territory/field sharing.
Areas of practice
Complex early-stage R&D deals
- Advising on target discovery collaborations
- Drafting option-based structures
- Negotiating preclinical program licensing
Clinical-stage asset deals
- Assisting with co-development and/or profit-sharing or other complex financial arrangements
- Advising on equity investments, credit facilities and other off-balance-sheet funding mechanisms
- Counseling on cross-border and global transactions
Commercial-stage assets
- Advising on co-promotion and indication-splitting arrangements
- Assisting in structuring spinoffs, divestitures and out-licenses from pharma
- Negotiating the repurposing of assets
Representative matters
2024
Kura Oncology and Kyowa Kirin – $1.16 billion deal
AviadoBio and Astellas – $2.23 billion deal
Merus and Gilead – $1.5 billion deal
Foreseen Biotechnology and Ipsen – $1.03 billion deal
Radionetics Oncology and Eli Lilly – $1.14 billion deal
FutureGen and AbbVie – $1.71 billion deal
Ochre Bio and Boehringer Ingelheim – $1 billion deal
2023
SystImmune and Bristol Myers Squibb – $8.4 billion deal
Quell Therapeutics and AstraZeneca – $2.1 billion deal
Beam Therapeutics and Eli Lilly – $600 million deal
MediLink Therapeutics and Zai Lab
Immatics and Moderna – $1.7 billion deal
Zion Pharma and Roche – $680 million deal
SCYNEXIS and GSK – $593 million deal
2022
Immatics and Bristol Myers Squibb (expansion of 2021 collaboration) – $4.3 billion deal
Poseida Therapeutics and Roche – $6 billion deal
Turning Point Therapeutics and LaNova – $220 million deal
Zai Lab and Seagen – $30 million deal
Arsenal Biosciences and Genentech – $70 million deal
Horizon Therapeutics and Xeris – Undisclosed
2021
Immatics and Bristol Myers Squibb – $920 million deal
Poseida Therapeutics and Takeda – $3.6 billion deal
Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Sunovion – $890 million deal
Cidara Therapeutics and Janssen – $780 million deal
Molecular Templates and Bristol Myers Squibb – $1.4 billion deal
Merus and Eli Lilly – $1.6 billion deal
2020
Fate Therapeutics and Janssen Biotech – $3.1 billion deal
Sangamo Therapeutics and Biogen – $2.7 billion deal
Neurocrine and Takeda – $2 billion deal
Arcus Biosciences and Gilead – $2 billion deal
Hansa Biopharma and Sarepta – $407.5 million deal
Silence Therapeutics and AstraZeneca – $80 million deal
2019
Harpoon Therapeutics and AbbVie – $2.3 billion deal
Adaptive Biotechnologies and Genentech – $2.3 billion deal
Goldfinch Bio and Gilead – $2 billion deal
Neurocrine Biosciences and Voyager Therapeutics – $1.8 billion deal
Immatics and Celgene – $1.5 billion deal
Jazz Pharmaceuticals and PharmaMar – $1 billion deal
Bavarian Nordic and GSK – 955 million euros deal
StrideBio and Takeda – $710 million deal