Corporate Life Sciences

Life Sciences innovators turn to Wilson Sonsini’s corporate life sciences team so they can concentrate on breakthrough science, trusting us to help them transform their ideas into a viable enterprise with a cohesive intellectual property and regulatory strategy poised to attract institutional financing and achieve an attractive exit. For over 60 years, we have worked closely with our clients through every stage of their companies’ life cycles, helping over 1,000 private life sciences companies on matters ranging from formation to IPO and strategic partnerships. Coordinating seamlessly with our patents and innovations and technology transfer groups, we are counselors and strategic advisors to our clients, with unparalleled expertise in advising emerging growth companies, venture finance, M&A, strategic partnering, and IPOs. Our experience and strong relationships with our clients allow us to provide pragmatic and creative advice that helps them thrive through ever-changing economic and funding environments, weathering short-term ups-and-downs while ensuring the achievement of long-term growth and exit goals.

More than 100 of our patents and innovations legal professionals hold Ph.D.s and have significant experience in the life sciences industry. Our team also includes experts in technology transactions and commercialization, regulatory and compliance issues, and corporate matters, including former senior technology licensing executives at top-tier research universities and former in-house legal counsel for major life sciences companies.

Whether we are working with emerging or established companies, or with investors, our clients benefit from our holistic approach to enterprise building, our strategic IP counseling, and our deep relationships with life sciences entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, start-up incubators and accelerators, and research institutions.

For each client, we create a robust four-pillar strategic framework for maximizing the company’s chances of reaching its business objectives:

• a comprehensive IP strategy with clear guideposts for the steps necessary to achieve funding milestones, including a strategy for any potential in-licensing of third-party IP,
• a coordinated regulatory strategy to avoid self-inflicted wounds down the road and increase attractiveness to investors or acquirers,
• a financing and commercialization strategy that matches the company’s regulatory milestones and value inflection points with the optimal sources of capital each stage of its development, and
• a corporate strategy that supports future growth while minimizing risks and maximizing tax efficiencies.

See Corporate Life Sciences Practice on wsgr.com