Simplyhealth’s general counsel has moved to healthcare communications company Lucid Group. Jon Jansen-Alder leaves Simplyhealth after seven years, including five as its first GC. He trained at legacy Morgan Cole before moving to Reading firm Boyes Turner in 2008. Before joining Simplyhealth in 2014, Jansen-Alder was a commercial lawyer in Siemens UK healthcare sector and […]
An Amazon senior corporate counsel has been appointed head of legal at Health Data Research (HDR) UK to set up its legal function. Cassandra Smith joins HDR UK, the national institute for health data science, as head of legal and member of the executive committee. In the role, she will lead the development of HDR […]
Yorkshire firm Switalskis has bought clinical negligence specialist Pryers Solicitors, the latest in a series of acquisitions by the firm in its home region. Pryers is a York-based firm, founded in 2002 and previously owned by Pure Business Group, which owns a suite of legal brands. Switalskis has acquired it for an undisclosed sum; the […]
“As an innocent young Yorkshireman, a couple of the PAs convinced me that for the summer party in London you wore a dance card on your wrist and had to dance with different people during the course of the evening.”
Taylor Wessing is advising pharma giant Pfizer on aspects around the rollout of its Covid-19 vaccine across Europe, The Lawyer understands. The firm is understood to be counselling the company on patent issues arising from the unprecedentedly large-scale distribution of the vaccine it developed in conjunction with German biotech company BioNTech. It is understood that […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Macfarlanes and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz have spearheaded AstraZeneca’s $39bn (£29.5bn) stock-and-cash acquisition of US biotech Alexion. Cambridge-headquartered AstraZeneca’s acquisition of its US rival comes amid its central role in developing the much-anticipated Covid-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford. Freshfields advised AstraZeneca on both the US and UK legal aspects […]
DWF has won a mandate to provide Covid-19 legal advice to NHS Digital, the information and technology provider for the national healthcare system. A team from the listed firm will be seconded to the public body as part of a £227,000 contract. The team seconded includes Manchester data protection head and partner JP Buckley and […]
The UK’s authorisation of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the latest development in a nine-month long mandate for Clifford Chance’s IP team.
The Supreme Court has dismissed Sidley Austin’s drug patent appeal, in a dispute between a French pharma company and the NHS. The US firm has been representing French headquartered Servier Laboratories in its dispute with The Secretary of State for Health and the NHS, which instructed Peters & Peters. It was alleged that Servier breached […]
Teva is close to finalising its global legal panel, following a tender process lasting over a year and a half. Pinsent Masons, Goodwin Procter and Taylor Wessing are understood to be among the contenders vying for a place on the pharmaceutical giant’s latest panel. A source told The Lawyer that Teva has not specified how […]
Spending time getting to know the minutiae of the pharmaceutical world is paying off for Shield Therapeutics’ GC and company secretary Lucy Bailey
Pearson’s general counsel is leaving the education publisher to join GlaxoSmithKline’s consumer healthcare business. Bjarne Tellmann – who has been Pearson’s GC for six years – is joining GSK where he will take up the role of senior vice president and general counsel from July. Tellmann joined Pearson in 2014 from the Coca-Cola company, where […]