The healthcare sector is increasingly competitive, with generic companies and the biotech industry steadily growing their market share against the research-led pharmaceutical companies that have dominated the industry for decades.
It is a complex sector, in which companies operate under high levels of regulatory scrutiny. Multi-national pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, medical device manufacturers, and healthcare companies rely on Linklaters for legal advice in a variety of practice areas, including corporate/M&A, finance, intellectual property and regulatory law, and dispute resolution; and consolidation within the healthcare sector, and the European Commission’s sector inquiry, have led to an increasing demand for advice on competition law.
Challenges by generic companies to the patents protecting leading branded drugs are a significant issue for pharmaceutical companies, and this is an area in which we have particular strength. With the growth of the industry in countries such as China and India, Linklaters’ experience in emerging markets has become increasingly important to clients.
Generic competition is just one of the challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry. Scrutiny and regulation of the industry by national and supra-national regulators is increasing; and, again, our global dispute resolution team has significant experience in assisting clients with their global governance, risk and compliance programs.
Linklaters also acts for hospital groups and other healthcare services companies, including advising on many PPP (public private partnership) and PFI (private finance initiative) hospital projects in the UK and around the world.
Linklaters’ healthcare lawyers have experience in a variety of practice areas and juridictions. Many have scientific backgrounds. The scale and depth of our experience allows us to advise our clients on how best to respond to the ever-changing competitive and economic landscape of the healthcare sector.
Contact us
To discuss legal issues with Linklaters’ global healthcare team, please contact leaders Nigel Jones or Shane Griffin.
You can find out more about Linklaters’ healthcare capabilities from healthcare sector manager Lucy Needleman on (44 20) 7456 5819.
Recent healthcare transactions include advising:
- Johnson & Johnson on its acquisition of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare business in Belgium and Luxembourg and coordination of the transaction in the EMEA region
- 3i, the global private equity and venture capital company, on the buyout of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, the world-wide developer and supplier of specialist active pharmaceutical ingredients
- Capio AB on the acquisition of the largest private healthcare group in Spain;
- the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) to provide lifesaving vaccines to more than 500 million children in over 70 of the world’s poorest countries
- AstraZeneca on its first move towards the biologics sector, the milestone acquisition of Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc and a number of other acquisitions
- the underwriters on the IPO of the Russian pharmaceutical company, Pharmastandard
- Sanofi-Aventis on the merger of Aventis into Sanofi-Aventis
- A&D Pharma on the first listing of a Romanian company on the London Stock Exchange
- Wyeth on a number of patent actions relating to the expiry of the SPC for lansoprazole
- the UK Treasury in setting up its credit guarantee facility financing structure for the first time on the financing of the Oncology Wing of St. James Hospital, Leeds
