Launching a drug development company with novel technology from academia
Our corporate group has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs at this stage to help them optimally and efficiently select and form the appropriate legal entity
Projects We Work On
Product Licensing & Collaboration
Overview
For many emerging companies in life science, healthcare IT, medical devices or engineering technology, accelerating value creation by collaborating with other industry players is an important business strategy.
Collaborations are challenging to structure, and you need legal counsel who:
- thoroughly understand your intellectual property and the technology behind your R&D programs
- are business-savvy and can help create agreements that achieve your financial and scientific goals
- and can represent your interests in situations where your counterparty may be much larger and have greater negotiating leverage than you.
Experience
At Faber, we’ve worked with 2,000+ clients in life science, healthcare IT, medical devices and engineering technology. We have over a dozen lawyers focusing their practices on handling these kinds of transactions, and our life science practice is among the deepest and most comprehensive in the country. As a result, whatever your opportunity, we’re likely to have a senior lawyer who has recently handled comparable deals involving similar technology, industry segments and client situations … very often with the same counterparties you’re talking to.
Further, many of our lawyers have worked in-house in your industry, giving them practical insight into how a contract will play out in the real world. Several of our professionals have been entrepreneurs and led venture-backed companies.
Our transactional experience includes:
- Licensing for compounds, technology platforms, processes, know-how and software
- Selective licensing by application or territory
- Evaluation and option arrangements
- Alliances for discovery, co-development and/or co-commercialization
- Manufacturing and process/formulation collaborations
- Promotion and distribution agreements
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Focus
At Faber, most of our attorneys have managed in-house legal departments for Big Pharma, where they launched such partnerships, then managed them throughout their life cycle. Several of us are former entrepreneurs whose business leadership resulted in successful collaborations.
A senior attorney will work closely with your scientific and business leaders to craft a strategic partnership that is “fit for purpose” — optimally designed to achieve your high priority R&D and commercial goals, while respecting your unique risk tolerance for key areas of business. We do this by considering whether each key term:
- aligns (or misaligns) the interests of the parties,
- maintains the necessary leverage to address and adapt flexibly to unforeseen developments and challenges, and
- balances responsibility and risk with investment, control and potential financial reward.
Comprehensive foresight
Because we appreciate that these deals are about forging business relationships, we understand where they can go wrong and how to negotiate terms that will help keep them on track. Based on our operational backgrounds, we’ll help you prioritize issues and account for the details that determine real world success.
We also have experience appropriately employing a wide variety of option based and staged deal structures.
Our clients rely on us to provide sound business judgment, as well as legal advice, to manage or mitigate specific risks and challenges in these structures, such as a change of control or shifts in business and scientific priorities during the full deal lifecycle.
Related Transactions
Paragon Therapeutics, Inc. + Apogee Therapeutics, Inc.
Antibody Discovery and Option AgreementOption for exclusive development and commercial rights to a suite of Paragon’s top-tier antibodies specifically engineered to target some of the largest and highest unmet needs in inflammatory and immunological conditions
Press Release
Versant Ventures Management, LLC
Antibody Discovery and Collaboration AgreementMulti-year collaboration with AbCellera to discover therapeutic antibodies for multiple targets selected by Versant’s portfolio of biologics-focused biotechnology companies
Press Release
ONK Therapeutics Limited + Intellia Therapeutics, Inc.
License, Collaboration and Option AgreementLicense, Collaboration and Option Agreement to advance allogeneic CRISPR-Edited NK cell therapies, with milestones up to $920M per product plus royalties
Press Release
Global Alliance for TB Drug Development + GlaxoSmithKline
Research and Development Collaboration AgreementAmended and Restatement of Research and Development Collaboration Agreement with GSK to identify and advance novel chemical entities for the potential treatment of TB as well as non-tuberculosis mycobacterial infections
Press Release
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. + Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Disease Education and Promotion AgreementUnited States gastrointestinal disease education and promotion agreement with Ironwood for Alnylam’s givosiran product
Press Release
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. + Vir Biotechnology, Inc.
Collaboration and License AgreementExclusive license with Vir Biotechnology to develop and commercialize RNAi therapeutics for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and a research collaboration for other infectious diseases
Press Release
EpimAb Biotherapeutics Inc. + Kymab Limited
Cross-Licensing and Development AgreementCross-Licensing and Development Agreement for Bispecific Antibody Therapeutics in Immuno-oncology
Press Release
Massachusetts Eye and Ear + Lonza Houston, Inc.
Strategic Licensing AgreementStrategic Licensing Agreement for Next-Generation Gene Therapy Technologies
Yumanity Therapeutics + New York Stem Cell Foundation
Discovery CollaborationDiscovery Collaboration Focused on Generation of Stem Cell Lines to Enable Development of Novel Therapeutics for Neurodegenerative Diseases
Kite Pharma, Inc. + Cell Design Labs
Strategic Research Collaboration AgreementStrategic Research Collaboration for CAR T-cell Immunotherapeutics
Press Release
WAVE Life Sciences Ltd. + Pfizer Inc.
Strategic Research Collaboration AgreementStrategic Research Collaboration to Develop Treatments for Metabolic Diseases Utilizing Proprietary Antisense and RNAi Technologies (including $40 million in upfront payments, up to $871 million in milestone payments and royalties)
Press Release
Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG + Janssen
Research CollaborationResearch collaboration for autoimmune and chronic inflammatory disorders
ProThera Biologics, Inc. + ProMetic Life Sciences
Cross-License and Cross-Border Strategic PartnershipCross-license and cross-border strategic partnership to develop, manufacture and commercialize plasma-derived Inter-alpha Inhibitor Proteins (IAIPs) for treating orphan diseases and for other indications
Press Release
H3 Biomedicine + Foundation Medicine
Research CollaborationCollaboration for the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for cancer using FMI’s genomics database
Biogen Inc. + Proteostasis Therapeutics
Research CollaborationCollaboration for the development of drugs to combat Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases (including amendment of a pre-existing license agreement with Harvard University)
