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
Collaborative Transformation
Subscribe to Collaborative Transformation's Posts

Disrupting Healthcare – Constructively: Considerations for Executing Innovation

The healthcare industry is facing significant disruption from new market entrants and technology innovations that have the potential to improve how care is delivered, to lower healthcare costs, and to improve healthcare outcomes. But not all disruption is built to have a sustained and positive impact—how do you tell which innovative technologies and ventures will change healthcare for the better, and which are just noise?

We all hear about disruptive innovation – the power of innovative thinking that sees beyond traditional ways of doing things in favor of new, better methods. When innovators enter the health arena and consider its problems creatively, they seek to break down inefficient aspects that don’t work well for stakeholders and patients. Problems can arise, however, if these innovators simultaneously disrupt processes or protective expectations that serve important functions. Healthcare is a heavily regulated and normative environment—for good reason. Many of its laws and norms function to keep patients safe and clarify roles and responsibilities. This post explores key considerations for new entrants into the healthcare marketplace.

Know Your Audience

To help ensure that disruption is constructive, make sure you understand the needs of your customers and their obligations to their customers and internal stakeholders. Because hospitals, health plans and providers, for example, must operate within a complex regulatory environment, your product or service needs to take those constraints into account. No matter how powerful your technology is, if it shifts regulatory burden onto your customers’ shoulders, it risks being unadoptable.

Data privacy presents a [...]

Continue Reading




read more

How to Engage in Constructive Disruption

The healthcare industry is facing significant disruption from new market entrants and technology innovations that have the potential to improve how healthcare is delivered. But how do you tell which innovative technologies and ventures will have a sustained and positive impact, and which are just noise? In this episode of the Collaborative Transformation podcast series, Lucia Savage, chief privacy and regulatory officer at Omada Health, joins McDermott partner Jennifer S. Geetter to discuss:

  • What it takes for disruption to be truly constructive in today’s dynamic market
  • The rise of mobile healthcare delivery and patient engagement, driven by technological advances and consumer expectations
  • The limits of the HIPAA regulatory framework and current reimbursement rules as they relate to digital health technologies
  • Tips for tapping into the growing digital health innovation community through strategic investment

Click here to listen to the episode.

 




read more

Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Marshall E. Jackson, Jr.

Marshall E. Jackson, Jr.
Associate
Office: Washington, DC
Year at Firm: 4

What is your favorite part about practicing healthcare law at McDermott? 

My favorite part of practicing healthcare law at McDermott is working with clients that are out in front tackling very interesting and unique issues. The healthcare industry continues to evolve, and our clients are at the forefront. The changes in the industry have required clients to navigate areas of uncertainty, and our clients look to us to help them navigate that uncertainty. I have been blessed to sit shoulder to shoulder with a dynamic McDermott team helping our clients tackle new and unprecedented issues. No day is a dull day.

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

Many of our clients face the challenge of balancing the need to deliver affordable, quality healthcare to people when and where they need it, while maximizing return on investment for their business within a hot healthcare market. While one side seems provider-centered and the other investor-centered, providers and investors alike grapple with this balancing act. In addressing this balance in the context of an ever-changing industry, our clients are seizing opportunities to embrace new ways to deliver healthcare, and forming strategic partnerships and collaborations to strike the balance. We are increasingly [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Podcast: Collaboration Through Innovation Centers

Healthcare is facing a time of transformation as regulators, providers and other stakeholders take action to improve care coordination and increase the use of technology to deliver care. Hospital and health system innovation centers are increasingly acting as the catalyst to fuel growth and expansion through technology and data. In this episode of the Collaborative Transformation podcast series, McDermott partners Kerrin Slattery and Krist Werling discuss:

  • Opportunities for innovation centers and other collaborative arrangements in healthcare
  • Top regulatory and compliance challenges innovators face and ways to navigate them
  • Organizational and cultural issues for healthcare leaders to consider when making innovation a strategic priority
  • Investment structures and unique due diligence concerns to address when designing or investing in innovative deals
  • Key considerations when executing cross-border transactions in healthcare and life sciences

Click here to listen to the full episode. 

Kerrin and Krist, alongside other McDermott partners and executives from some of healthcare’s most innovative organizations, will address more topics related to collaboration and industry innovation at McDermott’s Hospital & Health System Innovation Summit on October 24 in New York. Click here to learn more about this program. 




read more

Proactive Due Diligence Considerations for Life Sciences Dealmakers

In today’s competitive and fast-paced life sciences dealmaking environment, buyers and investors are often unable to spend as much time on due diligence as they might like. Market players are often highly focused on the science itself and, as a result, may pay less attention to issues such as supply chain, intellectual property components and reimbursement. However, addressing these topics at the due diligence stage is critical—they can cause a deal to unravel if left unexamined, regardless of the strength of the science.

Due diligence standards and considerations vary significantly across life sciences subsectors— pharma, medical devices, digital health and AI are each governed by unique regulatory structures and operate in very different deal landscapes. Buyers and investors are well advised to consider end-game issues such as reimbursement options, protection for valuable IP and pathways to commercialization early in the planning process. Framing the areas of diligence focus around the value drivers of their target deal model and key contract elements requiring verification will allow buyers to leverage their diligence findings into an informed, forward-thinking action plan.

Reimbursement. When evaluating a potential life sciences transaction, it is never too early to start thinking about reimbursement. Due diligence should take into account the commercialization channel for the product and include engagement with data sources on alternative therapies and their reimbursement. If the product in view is entering an existing market, conversations with reimbursement specialists can help a buyer determine the best path to reimbursement. A product that is opening a new [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Collaborative Transformation: Life Sciences Partnerships – Delivering Deals that Work

The life sciences marketplace has been ripe for collaboration for the past decade, but new players, new technologies and new regulations are changing the space. Traditional life sciences companies are working together in new and exciting ways, bringing a variety of deal structures and new complexities into the landscape. Our Collaborative Transformation podcast episode “Driving the Deal: Life Sciences Partnership Opportunities, Pitfalls and Impact” with Emmanuelle Trombe and Gary Howes explores these issues in depth. Below are key takeaways from the episode, which you can listen to in full here.

It’s not just new players changing the space—it’s new approaches by traditional players. “It’s not only about pharma and biotech,” Trombe said. “We are seeing collaboration with health care players such as payers, insurers and providers.” Technology companies are also entering the space, bringing financial and philanthropic investments to the table. “People are still trying to do the same things, but they’re getting there in slightly different ways,” Howes said. Collaborations are also shifting from exclusive collaborations to more open collaborations, where partners are more closely involved in the product lifecycle, co-developing products and sharing technology, data and profits.

Bridging the gap between different industry cultures is crucial to building a successful collaboration. Product lifecycles and regulatory regimes vary across industries, but the gap between technology and health care/life sciences is particularly broad. “Life sciences health care companies looking at a lifecycle for their [...]

Continue Reading




read more

Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Megan Rooney

Megan Rooney
Partner
Office: Chicago
Years at Firm: 13

What is your favorite part about practicing health care law at McDermott? 

The team, the team, the team! It’s a pleasure to work with colleagues who have deep substantive expertise, prioritize client service, and are good human beings. As a healthcare M&A attorney, I am responsible for leading large teams of attorneys, including a variety of subspecialists, to drive efficient and effective outcomes and achieve business goals. I love knowing that, in nearly every instance, when an issue arises we have the specific expertise to handle it and there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

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

Our hospital and health system clients have a tremendous opportunity to improve the delivery of patient care, expand services provided to their communities and defend against the challenge of declining reimbursement through strategic partnerships. In addition to traditional hospital and health system M&A, our hospital and health system clients are increasingly pursuing Collaborative Transformations – that is, partnerships with non-traditional health care players. A successful Collaborative Transformation takes cultural integration between non-traditional partners, incorporating new technologies into health care regulatory compliance structures, and so much more.

(more…)




read more

Five Questions with a Health Lawyer: Karen Owen Gibbs

Karen Owen Gibbs
Partner, McDermott Will & Emery
Office: Chicago
Years at the Firm: 5

What is your favorite part of practicing health care law?

US health care law is interesting, fast-changing and relevant to virtually every person in the United States. As the health care space changes to incorporate new technologies and adjusts to meet patient expectations, I work with my clients on a range of issues that were not on the radar 10 or even five years ago. For example, I do a lot of work in the pharmaceutical industry, including facilitating collaborations between traditional pharma companies and new players, helping clients address reimbursement challenges resulting from the transition to value-based care, and helping providers navigate the opioid crisis. It’s an exciting time to help clients bring new and better care to patients.

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

The challenge and the opportunity are closely related. Many clients are seeking to maximize opportunities within today’s rapidly evolving regulatory and reimbursement climate. Current health care policy is highly focused on delivering better care to more people at a lower cost. Our clients are looking for opportunities to deliver on that challenge. That can include collaborating with partners from outside the health care industry such as [...]

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

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