Four US firms lead on Pfizer's multibillion-dollar acquisition of cancer drug maker
Wachtell, Ropes, Davis Polk and Cooley take roles on $14bn deal
August 23, 2016 at 05:30 AM
2 minute read
A quartet of US law firms are advising on a $14bn (£10.6bn) deal that will see pharmaceutical giant Pfizer acquire cancer drug maker Medivation.
The deal comes four months after new rules adopted by the US Department of the Treasury foiled Pfizer's plans to acquire Allergan in a $160bn (£121bn) tax inversion deal.
Ropes & Gray, a longstanding adviser to Pfizer, has once again taken the lead role for the the pharma giant, with a team led by M&A partner Christopher Comeau in New York.
Comeau is working with securities and public companies partner Paul Kinsella, tax partner David Saltzman, benefits partners Renata Ferrari and Jennifer Rikoski, corporate and shareholder litigation co-head Peter Welsh, government enforcement co-chair Joshua Levy and partner Alexandre Rene, and real estate partner Peter Alpert..
Ropes also represented Pfizer last year on its $17bn (£13bn) purchase of injectable drug giant Hospira, as well as Pfizer's $130m (£99m) purchase of meningitis vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline and the acquisition of an $87m (£66m) minority interest in Dutch biopharma firm AM-Pharma.
Medivation, meanwhile, turned to Cooley and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz. Wachtell, which took the lead for Pfizer on its failed bid for Allergan, is fielding a team led by corporate partners Daniel Neff, Trevor Norwitz, Mark Gordon, Gregory Ostling and Ronald Chen.
Cooley M&A partner Jamie Leigh, who three years ago joined the firm's San Francisco office from Latham & Watkins, is leading a team of lawyers including representatives from the firm's corporate, life sciences, litigation, antitrust, employment, regulatory and tax practices.
A year ago this month, Cooley sat across the table from Medivation in its role advising BioMarin Pharmaceutical on the $570m (£433m) sale of its rights to talazoparib, a treatment for breast cancer. Earlier this year, Cooley and Wachtell also lined up for Medivation as the company spurned a $9.3bn (£7bn) takeover offer from French drug giant Sanofi.
Alan Denenberg, a corporate partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell who for the past three years has served as head of the firm's office in Silicon Valley, is advising JP Morgan Securities as financial adviser to Medivation on the sale.
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