Laura O. Spiegelman represents life sciences founders, companies, investors and foundations in life sciences partnering, licensing, collaboration and other intellectual property-, technology- and product-related transactions, and related due diligences and strategic reviews.

Laura founded Spiegelman Life Sciences PC in February, 2011 in order to provide hands-on, unleveraged attention from experienced counsel focused exclusively on life sciences and this type of transaction.  This model is particularly compelling in her area of practice, where the deals are complex, varied and unique, and govern long-term relationships and rights that are core to the value of the company or investment, so that full engagement from experienced counsel can make a crucial difference.

Laura takes a well-rounded, interdisciplinary approach, combining depth in business, science, and the multiple areas of law that find their nexus in biotechnology and life sciences.  She is finely attuned to context and able to connect the details to the client’s strategic goals in order best to achieve them.  She has inside general counsel and extensive business development deal experience, has an undergraduate degree in Biology (and French), and is a registered patent attorney.  She assists clients to structure, negotiate, analyze, and manage strategic and complex partnering, licensing, and business development transactions and relationships. These range from foundational technology licenses, to early-stage research and drug discovery collaborations, to spin-outs (at all stages), to worldwide collaborations to develop and commercialize life sciences products, to acquisitions and alliances surrounding marketed products.  She helps founders secure their basic technology and establish their partnering models, as well as providing general counseling associated with starting up.  With company clients, leading up to working with them on their partnering deals, she assists them to acquire, align and improve their portfolios of in-licensed rights so as to be prepared for partnering.  Counseling investors in due diligence, she provides pragmatic, business-oriented legal advice to identify the key issues in licensing and partnering portfolios.  She has a firm but collaborative approach to getting deals done.

At her immediately preceding firm (Morrison & Foerster, 2004-2011 (Partner 2007-2011; Associate 2004-2006)), she was in the same area of practice as she is today, and was a founding member of a group that focused on investor-side IP due diligences of life sciences companies, leading the transactional component of that group.

Laura gained critical operating experience when she served as Associate General Counsel and the only practicing general counsel at Kosan Biosciences Inc., then a 130-person public biotechnology company with two clinical-stage chemotherapy  programs and multiple earlier-stage programs, in 2003-2004. Having gotten to know the company through a partnering deal with Roche that In Vivo magazine named one of the top 10 biotech deals of 2002, she then helped the company successfully settle litigation that threatened the license for its lead clinical program, pursue active business development programs, complete a $28 million registered direct offering, manage the company’s corporate and academic collaborations, rapidly establish relationships with clinical sites to advance the company’s clinical programs, and implement Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance and HIPAA initiatives. Her company experience makes her particularly cognizant of the larger business and operational context for transactions and the issues that emerging and public biotechnology companies face.

Prior to Kosan, Laura had a life sciences licensing, partnering, and commercial transactions practice in Palo Alto, California (Cooley-Godward, Associate, 1999-2003; Summer Associate 1998).

Laura received her J.D., Order of the Coif, With Distinction, in 1999, from Stanford Law School. At Stanford, she focused on areas of law and business most relevant to the biotechnology and life sciences industries (including by way of examples studying food and drug law with a former general counsel of the FDA, patent law with a practicing patent litigator, securities regulation with a former commissioner of the SEC, and legal and business issues surrounding differences in biotechnology transfer in the U.S. and France through a fellowship the law school awarded to her), designed a “molecular biology for lawyers” course, and was a Member Editor for the Stanford Law Review and a founding member of the Stanford Technology Law Review. She received her B.A., cum laude, in Biology and French from Amherst College in 1995, where she completed an honors thesis in Biology surrounding nuclear membrane dynamics examined in a sea urchin system, and the French department awarded her their Dijon Teaching Fellowship to teach English after graduation at the Université de Bourgogne.

While a student, she worked in research laboratories for the San Diego biotechnology companies Canji, Syngene, and Hybritech. The research she participated in at these companies involved a bacterial expression system for a human cancer-related protein, a molecular diagnostic test for tuberculosis, and hybridoma tissue culture-related research.

She is a member of the Licensing Executives Society (LES).  She served as Board Member/Secretary of the Professional Women’s Healthcare Alliance (an independent Bay Area industry group for women in the biotechnology and medical device industries) from 2005-2009.

Her speaking engagements have included:

• UC Berkeley BioExec Institute, 2011, Faculty Speaker, Deal-making Session
• QB3, Global BioEntrepreneurship Course, 2010, Patent/Licensing Worldwide Strategy
• C21 2010, Licensing and Collaborations in Changing Times: Avoiding Pitfalls and Maintaining Flexibility for the Strategic Deals of Tomorrow
• C21 2009, What happens in biotech partnering and licensing deals when things go wrong…and how to protect yourself.
• BioPartnering North America 2008, Partnering Panel
• BayBIO 2007, Value Terms in Partnering Agreements:  Going Beyond the Numbers
• BioPartnering North America 2007, Partnering Panel
• BioPartnering North America 2006, Value Terms in Partnering Agreements:  Going Beyond the Numbers

For copies of press coverage, a list of the types of representation available, excellent client references, or other information, please contact Laura.

DIRECTIONS/OFFICE INFORMATION

• 1700 Owens Street (Suite 530-5th Floor), San Francisco, CA  94158
• Located at corner of 16th & Owens in Mission Bay (the building with the blue/turquoise glass that you see heading North on 280, right next to the freeway).
• Show ID to sign in at security, then proceed to 5th floor reception.
• Building entrance is at the North-East corner of the building (at the building corner formed by the side of the building that fronts Owens and the side that faces the Gladstone Institutes).

DRIVING FROM SFO AIRPORT/PENINSULA

• From the Peninsula, take 101 North (or 280 N to 380 W to 101 N if you are coming from south of the airport) past Brisbane.  When 101 and 280 split at the southern end of San Francisco, keep right and get on 280 N towards downtown.  (Note that after the 101/280 split, 280 itself splits; keep right towards downtown.)
• Take the Mariposa exit; turn right at the bottom of the exit.
• Left at light on Third (first light).
• Left at light on 16th (first light; hospital construction site is on your left both before and after you turn; don’t think too deeply about why 3rd and 16th cross, they just do).

DRIVING FROM DOWNTOWN SF

OPTION 1 FROM DOWNTOWN SF (DON’T USE DURING BALLGAME TRAFFIC)

• Embarcadero to left on Third, go 4-5 blocks through the ballpark parking, then right on 16th.
• Either right on Owens and park at Rutter Center (2/3 of the way up the block on the right) or proceed on 16th through the Owens light and past the building (turquoise glass wedge on the corner of Owens on your right), take a right on the alley behind the building, go past the loading dock, and enter the garage on the right per parking info for Alexandria garage below (don’t be fooled by the Alexandria garage signs on Owens itself; the entrance is from the alley beyond the building not off Owens).

OPTION 2 FROM DOWNTOWN SF

• Take 7th towards Potrero Hill (freeway is on your left).
• Turn left on 16th (at the light).
• Either left on Owens (first light) and park at Rutter Center (2/3 of the way up the block on the right) or u-turn at Owens to loop back past the building (turquoise glass wedge on the corner of Owens on your right), take a right on the alley behind the building, go past the loading dock, and enter the garage on the right per parking info for Alexandria garage below (don’t be fooled by the Alexandria garage signs on Owens itself; the entrance is from the alley beyond the building not off Owens).

FROM NORTH BAY

• Cross the city towards the ball park by your favorite route.

• If taking Embarcadero, then go left on Third, go 4-5 blocks through the ballpark parking, then right on 16th.
• Either right on Owens and park at Rutter Center (2/3 of the way up the block on the right) or proceed on 16th through the Owens light and past the building (turquoise glass wedge on the corner of Owens on your right), take a right on the alley behind the building, go past the loading dock, and enter the garage on the right per parking info for Alexandria garage below (don’t be fooled by the Alexandria garage signs on Owens itself; the entrance is from the alley beyond the building not off Owens).

• If you take Gough, then make your way to 8th, left on Brannan, right on 7th.
• Turn left on 16th (at the light).
• Either left on Owens (first light) and park at Rutter Center (2/3 of the way up the block on the right) or u-turn at Owens to loop back past the building (turquoise glass wedge on the corner of Owens on your right), take a right on the alley behind the building, go past the loading dock, and enter the garage on the right per parking info for Alexandria garage below (don’t be fooled by the Alexandria garage signs on Owens itself; the entrance is from the alley beyond the building not off Owens).

FROM BAY BRIDGE

• Check the exit signs as the exits are re-routed as construction/retrofitting of the bridge proceeds.
• Take 5th-street exit.
• Harrison to left on 6th to right on Brannan to left on 7th to left on 16th at the light (at the grade crossing before 7th becomes Mississippi).
• Turn left at the first light on Owens and continue to Rutter garage on your right, or make a u-turn on Owens if you want to use Alexandria garage, take a right on the alley behind the building, go past the loading dock, and enter the garage on the right per parking info for Alexandria garage below (don’t be fooled by the Alexandria garage signs on Owens itself; the entrance is from the alley beyond the building not off Owens).

PARKING

• Parking is available either at the Rutter Center (turn North on Owens from 16th; Rutter Center and garage are on the right a little ways up), or in the Alexandria garage (coming from 3rd on 16th, proceed past the building on 16th, take the alley behind the building, go past the loading dock, and the next driveway is an entrance to the Alexandria garage; the alley is just shy of the freeway and parallel to it).
• Both garages take credit cards and have the same (modest) pricing.
• Both garages are a very short (~3-5 min) walk from the building.
• Alexandria garage is typically less crowded than Rutter and is closer walking.
• You do not need to leave your keys or retrieve the car by any particular hour.

QUESTIONS?

For more information, please contact Laura at lspiegelman@spiegelmanlifesciences.com or (415) 970 1502.