HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
Exploring Critical Business and Legal Issues across the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries
HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS
Exploring Critical Business and Legal Issues across the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries
Health M&A
Subscribe to Health M&A's Posts

Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Matt Friendly

Matt Friendly
Associate
Office: Miami
Years at Firm: 5

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law?

I appreciate that health care is constantly evolving and changing. While the vastness of the field can be intimidating for some, it provides career-making opportunities to gain experience in a sub-specialty and build a reputation within that space. I am also grateful for the heavy volume of deal activity in health care – with no signs of slowing down – which presents constant opportunities to learn, grow and support clients who are shaping the health care landscape.

What is the biggest opportunity and greatest challenge facing clients in your area of focus today? 

The greatest opportunity for many of our clients is selling their business or portfolio company at a time when the market is ripe for health care acquisitions, with valuations trending upwards and buyers with tremendous amounts of capital to deploy. This dealmaking climate presents a challenge for our clients who must determine how to make smart health care investments and navigate a complex regulatory framework once they own the company. That’s where McDermott comes in – our team is experienced in getting deals done and providing creative, business-focused solutions at every stage of the transaction process.

Who is your favorite health care leader or influencer to read, watch or follow and why?

Physical [...]

Continue Reading




read more

McDermott Named Health Practice Group of the Year by Law360

We greatly appreciate our readers continuing to turn to us for insight on the most critical legal, regulatory and transactional developments, and innovative collaborations transforming health care. Over the past year, McDermott’s Health practice made headlines for our work on several of the most high-profile collaborative transformations that took place in 2018: We were one of several law firms to advise CVS Health Corp. on its approximately $70 billion cash and stock purchase of health insurer Aetna Inc. McDermott also assisted Air Medical Group Holdings in its $2.44 billion acquisition of American Medical Response (AMR), a medical transportation company, from Envision Healthcare Corporation. It is because of our role in ground-breaking transactions like these that—for the fifth time in 10 years—McDermott was recognized by Law360 as the Health Practice Group of the Year.

We’re passionate about the results our clients are achieving and our role in helping them transform health care. We are equally passionate about what these results mean for the industry and health care consumers. Through our blogs, articles and health-focused events, we are committed to providing you with thought leadership that will help expand your field of vision as you navigate the rapidly changing health care landscape.

To read Law360’s profile of McDermott’s industry-leading health care practice, click here. McDermott was also named Practice Group of the Year in the Tax category. For more information about our approach to Collaborative Transformation, visit mwe.com/collaborativetransformation.




read more

A Year in Physician Practice Management: For Auld Lang Syne

With equal parts hope and optimism, we look ahead to an eventful New Year. This is particularly true for the physician practice management (PPM) industry: we reflect on the progress of the past while looking forward to the opportunities today’s growing and increasingly complex landscape provides. We believe the trends we’ve seen shape the industry will continue to be influential, including:

The growing involvement of private equity investors

Last year, we hosted the 2018 Health Care Services Private Equity Symposium, where we discussed how various business and legal opinions have an impact of private equity in the PPM industry. Watch this space, as they say, in 2019. PPMs continue to garner an emerging interest from investors, who are noting their benefits for assisting physicians in an increasingly complex reimbursement and regulatory environment.

An increased focus on specialties entering the PPM fray

In the late 90s, we saw a fast, chaotic rollout of PPMs in the health care industry. Now, the reintroduction of PPMs has been more deliberate and evenly paced, allowing for stronger, strategic alignment with physicians and the ability to truly deliver on the value proposition PPMs provide. As such, more specialty practices are coming into the mix, including ophthalmology, gastrointestinal, women’s care/OBGYN, orthopedics and urology. Still, the rising trend of consolidating physician practices and the federal oversight that accompanies this undoubtedly will have an impact on the ultimate success of PPM companies.

Compliance continues to be [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Dealmaking in Life Sciences – Valuations and Partnerships that Work

Technology companies are pouring unprecedented capital, time and energy into the health care and life sciences industry, and are reshaping the deal landscape in the process. The top 10 US tech companies have made $4.7 billion in acquisitions in the health care space since 2012, according to CB Insights. Key market factors driving health care joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions include the merger of molecular science and computer technology, a growing focus on patient-centric care, increased mobility of consumer health products and services, and deep capital markets. In this fast-paced, proactive deals environment, traditional health players have exciting—and disruptive—new opportunities to enter into unexpected partnerships and pursue transformative innovation.

With Great Disruption Comes Great Opportunity

A helpful analogy for understanding the role of tech companies in this rapidly evolving sector is Uber’s disruption of the ride-hailing industry. When Uber came on the scene, on-demand ride-hailing was only available through taxicabs, and frequently only available in major cities. Now on-demand ride hailing is available through numerous companies and in areas that previously did not have such services available. Ride-hailing companies have also expanded their services offering to include food delivery.

Tech companies entering the health industry today are doing the same thing: reimagining and redefining the fundamentals of consumer access to health care. These companies often have deep insight into distribution and consumer purchasing behavior, and are willing to invest more capital and take on more risk than traditional health industry players [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Pursuing Progress: Collaborative Transformation in Action

It’s the industry disruptors, the unusual partnerships, and the cross-border and cross-sector relationships that are driving Collaborative Transformation in the health care and life sciences organizations. But a Collaborative Transformation takes more than signing paperwork and shaking hands. A successful Collaborative Transformation takes cultural integration between non-traditional partners, incorporating new technologies into health care regulatory compliance structures, and so much more. At McDermott, we’ve recently had the opportunity to help our clients pursue their own Collaborative Transformations, and are proud to showcase their achievements.

Innate Pharma Expands its Collaboration with AstraZeneca

McDermott Will & Emery advised Innate Pharma, a French oncology-focused biotech company, in signing a multi-term agreement with AstraZeneca and MedImmune – AstraZeneca’s global biologics research and development arm. This agreement broadens the existing collaboration, aimed at accelerating the development of an oncology portfolio of each of the parties and to provide patients with more rapid access to new therapeutic options. This extended collaboration will permit Innate Pharma to develop and commercially strengthen its investment ability to develop its immuno-oncology portfolio (IO) and its R&D platform. For its part, AstraZeneca will enrich its IO portfolio with new clinical and preclinical programs. For more information on this collaboration, click here.

CVS + Aetna

McDermott is one of the firms that has advised CVS Health in connection with its $69 billion purchase of Aetna. The transaction, one of this year’s largest M&A deals, is expected to transform the US health care sector. For more information on [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Connecting the Dots: Six Lessons from a Biotech M&A Case Study

For biotechs, success involves a several year hike through mazes of complex, cross-border, business, scientific, financial and regulatory issues. During this year’s BIO2018 conference in Boston, McDermott gathered a panel of industry leaders and McDermott practitioners and led a case study assessment of cross-border biotech M&A, linking life sciences hubs in Europe, Asia and North America. I had the opportunity to moderate our panel as we walked through the structuring and closing of an M&A transaction that involved the auction of a fictional US biotech company that has oncology platform IP/technology. While the company described in the case study was fictional as such, the company and its circumstances were a composite of McDermott’s actual deals.

Our panel’s examination of this case study yielded valuable insights into the context, cross-border dynamics, practicalities, opportunities and challenges underlying the growing volume of international life sciences M&A deals. For example, here are six takeaways.

  • Take a good look in the mirror. First, differentiate between your company’s wants vs. its needs, said Greg Benning, managing director and head of financial advisory at Back Bay Life Sciences Advisors. Review your company’s access to resources, particularly its near term funding, to make sure you can accomplish your development objectives regardless of whether your M&A aspirations are achieved. Next, conduct an in-depth analysis of the company’s platform and its asset portfolio, and assess how third parties will view it. This process should yield a realistic assessment of actionable alternatives. “Having defined the playing [...]

    Continue Reading



read more

Collaborative Transformation: Shaping the Future of Health Care, Together

As the health care and life sciences fields experience ever-increasing levels of disruption, diverse entities across the industry are teaming up to embrace and foster innovation. These new pairings are shaping the future of health care, as organizations come together to tackle the industry’s most pressing issues with redoubled agility and pooled resources.

In an environment of change and uncertainty, this trend of Collaborative Transformation is yielding improved financial outcomes, increased operational efficiencies, and a fresh infusion of diverse talent and perspectives—all of which result in enhanced quality of care.

This is where the McDermott Health and Life Sciences team comes in. As a top-ranked US health law practice and a leader in life sciences with decades of experience advising the leading players in US and cross-border health and life sciences, we have the skill, market insight and ingenuity to partner with you wherever your innovation takes you. Whether you are forming innovative alliances across borders and industries, creating or implementing groundbreaking technologies and services, or restructuring investments to position your organization at the cutting edge of the market, our team can work alongside yours to achieve excellence.

Click here to learn more about McDermott Health, our recent work executing collaborative transformations on behalf of our clients and how we can help your organization form innovative business relationships.




read more

Key Considerations for a Seamless Practice Acquisition

For physician practice management (PPM) organizations going through an acquisition processes – whether by a physician group or a private equity firm – one idea should remain top-of-mind: integration must start before the closing.

The Harvard Business Review states that 70 to 90 percent of acquisitions fail because of integration issues, noting that “companies that focus on what they are going to get from an acquisition are less likely to succeed than those that focus on what they have to give it.”

Working toward a smooth transition for employees from day one will not only help boost morale, but also contribute to the value-add of your PPM. With that in mind, below are four key considerations to help implement an efficient and effective integration strategy, ensuring a seamless transition before, during and after the deal is done:

  1. Put Your People First – As we explored during our annual PPM/ASC Symposium back in March, the first step and greatest challenge in practice integration is ensuring cultural compatibility. For practices with workers that have different working styles and expectations, merging could cause friction points and potential turnover for those dissatisfied with the new conditions. Ensuring systems are in place for immediate employee inclusion is critical. This can begin with something as simple as including them in all-staff communications and keeping them up to date of what’s happening at the company. Feedback systems where merging workforces can share their insights and recommendations can also [...]

    Continue Reading



read more

The Importance of Ongoing Physician Collaboration, Engagement and Integration in PPM Management

In partnerships, the key to success lies in communication, understanding, and involvement. This certainly applies to PPMs, which learned in the 1990s that an “us versus them” mentality between physicians and the management companies can lead to economic turmoil.

To avoid a similar fate, those in charge of managing a PPM must understand the needs and desires of those leading the boots-on-the-ground patient operations. Working closely with physicians and establishing what they need is crucial to aligning incentives, which leads to happier employees and a better return on investment. It is incumbent upon the PPMs of today to learn from the mistakes of 20 years ago and foster healthy, receptive relationships with physicians. It is also important to truly integrate acquired practices, so that the physicians really feel part of a single integrated system and not part of an independent affiliate of the PPM.

All of this can be done using the following five strategies:

Ensure Integration: Immediately, post-closing, ensure that the PPM’s integration team takes real steps to integrate the acquired practice’s business into the PPM. Consolidate systems and processes, so that the practices and PPM are deeply intertwined and not loosely affiliated. Proper integration up front is key to ultimate success.

Enlist Input: As PPM owners understand, physician input is traditionally tied to physician ownership. However, this type of ownership is becoming rarer. In 2017, the proportion of patient care physicians with an ownership stake in their medical practice dropped [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Three Environmental Factors Impacting the PPM Industry and Getting Deals Done

The PPM industry is by no means immune to the ebbs and flows of a traditional marketplace. Since the consolidation bubble burst in the 1990s, PPMs have gone from practically extinct to a once-again substantial component of the health care delivery system. But with greater influence comes more pressure to respond, and adapting to today’s complex operating environment requires those in the PPM industry to ensure they are building the foundational structure needed to help practices adapt to external factors and achieve long-term success.

Here are three defining aspects of today’s complex PPM environment, as well as several important considerations to help navigate environmental uncertainties and create a better patient experience.

  1. Physician satisfaction and expectations are changing: As millennial doctors enter the workforce, they’re driving a sea change in terms of job expectations. With better work-life balance as a top priority, many young physicians are looking to be employees rather than employers, joining an existing practice instead of starting their own. Therefore, communicating what a PPM has to offer in terms of long-term incentives, rather than short-term profit margins, will be crucial to drawing in younger doctors and building a foundation that will last into the future.
  2. Reimbursement strategies are evolving: Payer models and expectations continue to shift. Patients are being folded into a system that’s evolving from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement models. As of now, the federal government is the biggest source of health care reimbursements in the country, but how legislative changes to reimbursement frameworks will impact [...]

    Continue Reading



read more

STAY CONNECTED

TOPICS

ARCHIVES

Chambers 2021 Top Ranked
U.S. News Law Firm of the Year 2022 Health Care Law
LEgal 500 EMEA top tier firm 2021
Legal 500 USA top tier firm