UK | Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences

SJ Berwin’s Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences Group is one of the leading practices of its kind in the UK and acts for a broad range of pharmaceutical and healthcare clients.

SJ Berwin’s lawyers have acted in many of the landmark legal and regulatory actions in the pharmaceutical sector, not only in the domestic courts, but also before the European Court of Justice, the European Commission and the Competition Commission.

The expertise within the Group spans the full range of disciplines required in the sector, including:

• Regulatory (including advising on the framework and procedures for obtaining marketing authorisation for medicines, data exclusivity, Bolar exemptions, medical device regulation, packaging and re-packaging, litigation and judicial review of decisions of regulators);
  
• Competition and antitrust (including advising on application of EU competition laws and equivalent provisions in Members States; R&D, pricing and distribution agreements; stock pricing and allocation, proceedings before the European Commission, the OFT and the Court; and merger clearance);
  
• Patent and other intellectual property litigation and counselling (including patent advice and litigation; confidential information disputes; trade mark filing and oppositions; trade mark and parallel import disputes);
  
• Licensing and commercial exploitation (including agreements for licensing; R&D; partnering; clinical trials; confidentiality; sub-contracting and contract manufacturing; marketing and co-marketing; supply and distribution; and
  
• Corporate advice (fund formation, company capital raising from seed to IPO, advising on and creating corporate structures, joint ventures, tax, mergers and acquisitions; takeovers and de-mergers).

Our lawyers have industry knowledge and experience and speak frequently at the leading industry events and conferences.  This expertise is recognised by legal and industry-specific directories who, year on year, rank the lawyers in SJ Berwin’s Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences Group as leaders in their respective fields.

A number of our lawyers have worked in the Competition Directorate General, the Legal Service and the Internal Market Directorate General of the European Commission.  We also have close links with important regulatory bodies, including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA, formerly the Medicines Control Agency), competent medicines agencies in other EU Member States, the Department of Health, the European Medicines Evaluation Agency and the relevant divisions within the European Commission.

The work of the Group is predominantly in the fields identified above.  However SJ Berwin is a full service firm and clients in the sector regularly call upon our other specialist lawyers to advise in areas such as commercial disputes and employment and executive contracts.