Life sciences is a key specialism for Taylor Vinters. Innovation and enterprise is at the heart of what we do, and we support some of the world’s most successful life sciences and technology businesses. We are thrilled and honoured to work with our truly ground-breaking and visionary clients.
Our work reflects the full diversity of the life sciences sector, ranging from start-ups and venture-backed companies to MNCs, research organisations to grant funders, CROs and technology consultancies. We are excited by innovators and entrepreneurs who have a positive impact on the world, and motivated by making great things happen for them.
We understand the highs and lows you’ll encounter throughout your journey, from the optimism of start-up, through all the challenges of growth, to the painstaking planning for exit. As a full-service law firm, we provide practical, joined up advice to support you through every stage.
At the core of our offering are lawyers ready to work with you to secure your funding requirements and help you establish and execute your IP strategy. We know it is essential to protect and fully exploit the intellectual property at the heart of your business, so we’ll guide you through registration, licensing and partnerships, to ensure you realise its full value worldwide. At the same time, we will advise on the other issues you are likely to encounter, such as:
- Regulatory
- Corporate
- Employment
- Real estate
- Funding
- Disputes
You can depend on us as your virtual in-house team, always on hand with proactive business and legal advice. We’ll mirror your drive and ambitions, introducing new opportunities through our network of professional advisors and valuable contacts, including investors, partners and clients.
- Microbiotica – advising on its strategic collaboration with Genentech for microbiome biomarker signatures and therapeutic discovery, based on Genentech’s inflammatory bowel disease pipeline and utilising Microbiotica’s leading gut microbiome Reference Genome Database and Culture Collection. Microbiotica to receive up to $534 million in upfront and milestone payments.
- Morphogen-IX – licensing of core technology to underpin funding to develop treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Morphogen-IX has raised £1.5m in seed funding, led by Index Ventures, along with Cambridge Innovation Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds.
- Argenta – supporting Argenta on a major research collaboration and licensing agreement with AZ to discover improved bronchodilators for COPD. Argenta receive $21 million upfront plus further committed research funding and pre-clinical milestone payments.
- Adaptate – advising on the licensing and funding of this spin-out for Gamma Delta Therapeutics, with backing from Takeda and Abingworth, Roche and Discuva Limited, entering into a worldwide collaboration and licence agreement for the discovery and development of new antibiotics. Discuva received an upfront payment of $16 million, research fees and payments on multiple programmes of up to $175 million per product, dependent on key development, commercialisation and sales milestones.
- Congenica – advising on both its strategic partnership in China to develop its clinical genomics and personalised medicine products for the Chinese market, and its multi-year contract with Genomics England, to be a provider of Diagnostic Decision Support Services for Genomics England to deliver the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.
- Pangaea – supporting Pangaea on its license and research collaboration with Cancer Research Technology and for new cancer drugs.
- STORM Therapeutics – a spin-out from the University of Cambridge, translating the ground-breaking work in RNA epigenetics into the discovery of first-in-class drugs in oncology and other diseases, including IP licensing and fundraising. STORM received £12m in Series ‘A’ funding from Cambridge Innovation Capital, Imperial Innovations, Merck Ventures and Pfizer Venture Investments.
- Janpix – discovering and developing inhibitors of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription (STAT) proteins. A spin-out from University of Toronto, including IP licensing and fundraising, and launched with US$19m funding.
- IONTAS – IONTAS signing collaboration agreement with LG Chem Ltd to identify therapeutic oncology leads.
- Freeline Therapeutics – assisting this biotechnology company on negotiating and agreeing clinical trial agreements in four jurisdictions across Europe and Australasia. Reviewing and assessing compliance with US regulatory requirements regarding information provision.
- Omnigen Biodata – advising, from a legal and strategic standpoint, this innovative digital health company that integrates real world health and genetic data. Assisting on the commercialisation strategy for real world data, and negotiating a licence and collaboration agreement with a top 50 “Fortune 500” company. Providing in-depth complex regulatory advice around the commercialisation of health data in an ethical and transparent way, including data protection and strategies to achieve commercialisation whilst remaining compliant with all relevant legislation.
- PredictImmune – advising on its laboratory and distribution agreements for its diagnostics products.
- Freeline – assisting this leading clinical stage biotechnology company with their global property needs and expansion, to enable them to continue to discover, develop and manufacture innovative gene therapies.
- Mogrify – taking 12,000 sq. ft. of laboratory and office space at the Bio-Innovation centre on the Cambridge Science Park. The Cambridge Bio-Innovation Centre features facilities for biotech research and health-tech innovation and is the first of its kind to be built at the Cambridge Science Park. It is fitted with laboratories for multiple occupiers in the life sciences sector. Mogrify is its anchor tenant. These new facilities will help Mogrify accelerate a scalable infrastructure to generate IP around its novel cell conversion, to power the development and manufacture of new cell therapies across multiple therapeutic areas.
- Supporting a global immuno-oncology company, advising on simplifying and streamlining its people onboarding strategy, with a view to supporting future recruitment needs.
- Supporting a number of early stage biotechs to put in place legally compliant and readily scalable hiring platforms.
- Advising several life science companies on restructuring teams and managing sensitive exits at critical business points.
- Supporting a top 20 pharma company with over 40k employees globally, on restructuring its workforce, including collective TUPE and redundancy strategy.
- Collaborating with a pioneering women’s health biotech on a GDPR review project (including HR strategy).
- Supporting a life science consultancy focused on market access and communication strategy, on preparing a bi-lingual international employment law handbook.
- Acurable – patent filings and strategic advice for Acurable’s award-winning technology. Acurable devised AcuPebble™, the world’s first wearable, non-invasive device able to accurately measure respiratory diseases. The first applications are in sleep apnoea and clinical research into the respiratory and cardiac signals of patients, in their own homes.
- Stemnovate – providing patent filing and IP strategic advice for their highly precise, targeted drug development platform. Stemnovate is based at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge UK.
- Water-Jel – A global leader in hydrogel formulations, developing and producing burn treatment formulations. We help them maintain their innovative market lead whilst retaining their categorisation as a medical device; presenting an interesting challenge in terms of strategic patent drafting and prosecution. We also advise Water-Jel on their trade marks and brands, and regulatory matters.
- Advising a key shareholder on the sale of its shares in NanoGenics (a leading siRNA therapeutics company) to Scottish biotech company Ryboquin as part of the sale of the entire issued share capital in NanoGenics.
- Discuva – supporting the sale of Discuva Limited to AIM-listed Summit Therapeutics plc, for an upfront price of £10 million plus a 50% share of collaboration milestones and royalties.
- Capital Cell – set-up and investment into Europe’s first equity investment platform specialising in life sciences.
- Dotmatics – completing a significant investment in Dotmatics by Scottish Equity Partners, who are a leading global scientific informatics software provider delivering enterprise solutions tailored to modern, highly collaborative and mobile scientific environments.
- Dick White Referrals – acting for the shareholders of DWR, selling a 76% stake in Dick White Referrals for £14.1m. The Cambridgeshire based firm is one of the country’s largest animal specialists, employing 66 vets and treating 5,000 cases a year.
- Centauri Therapeutics – advising Centauri on entering immuno-oncology therapeutic development and forming a joint venture with Horizon Discovery Group. Horizon to invest up to £5.3 million, with an initial outlay of £2.5 million, in a joint venture to identify novel immuno-oncology therapeutics.
- Oval Medical Technologies – advising Cambridge based Oval on their sale to SMC, a leading global contract manufacturer of medical devices. The sale allows Oval to further develop their next generation auto-injector products, for convenient delivery of drugs in small, user-friendly devices.
- Eagle Genomics – advising on their $3.5m funding led by the Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF Partners) and other investors including the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Newable Private Investing. Our support started at the early proposal stages and continued through to completing all formalities, enabling Eagle Genomics to accelerate development of its award-winning AI software to analyse complex microbiomic and genomic data.
- Endomag – strategic brands advice, trade mark clearance and filing, trade mark monitoring and enforcement, and management of Endomag’s worldwide trade mark portfolio. Endomag’s technology is focused on cancer care, particularly helping to avoid unnecessary surgery and enhancing precision to deliver better outcomes.
- Petmedix – Petmedix is taking the science of therapeutic antibodies, as used in human clinical research, and applying it to animal healthcare, to develop animal-specific treatments. We have supported Petmedix with strategic brands advice, trade mark clearance and registration.
- DynamX Medical – in early 2019 Beamline Diagnostics rebranded as DynamX Medical, to reflect the broader range of applications that have evolved from the company’s original screening technology. We advised DynamX on its new trade mark registrations, reflecting how its products and services fit in the global healthcare market.
- Enchroma, Inc. – Enchroma Inc. developed patented lens technology to produce glasses that give colour-blind people the ability to see more of the colour spectrum. We assisted Enchroma with registering and subsequently enforcing its trademarks.
- Royal Society of Chemistry – with a Royal Charter granted in 1848, the Royal Society of Chemistry is committed to advancing excellence in the chemical sciences by connecting people through knowledge, skills and community. We have helped maintain their international influence and reputation, through strategic brands advice, trade mark clearance and registration, and management of their worldwide trade mark portfolio.
- Advising an independent technology management company on proceedings under the World Intellectual Property Organization expedited arbitration rules and at the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in London, in relation to breach of licence and patent infringement proceedings.
- Advising a number of parties in an ongoing defence of claim for misuse of confidential information under a Collaboration Agreement and Warranty Claim under an SPA.
- Ongoing advice and negotiation focusing on the transfer of IP and know-how from a cell therapeutics and bioinformatics company, as part of a global settlement of a wide-ranging dispute involving numerous international parties and technologies.
- Supporting our client with ongoing and ad hoc advice over breach and termination of international distribution agreements, relating to medical devices for the detection and treatment of cancer.
- Successfully defending against a charity’s demand for repayment of patent royalties under an academic revenue share scheme.
- Successfully mediating a dispute concerning earn-out and additional consideration provisions in an SPA for an international Clinical Research Organisation.
- The adjudication of various domain name complaints brought at the World Intellectual Property Organization, concerning the misuse of trade marks.
