Life Sciences

Providing clear, high quality and relevant advice to pharmaceutical and life sciences clients
 
The life sciences sector faces significant challenges in the next few years. The regulators are currently taking a keen interest in the sector and the EU Commission is investigating whether sellers of patented drugs conspired to delay the entry of generic rivals.

This is against a background of new-drugs pipelines running dry, and many current blockbuster drugs looking set to lose their patent protection. It is estimated that some $55 billion of drugs went off patent in 2009, and consequently have to face generic competition. As a result, a premium is placed on robust patent protection.

Meanwhile sophisticated generics companies are challenging drug pipelines to carve out their own market share and fewer drugs are achieving blockbuster status. Consequently big pharma has little choice other than to consolidate as it becomes all the more reliant on acquisitions, joint ventures, and licensing deals to maintain its earnings and product portfolios.

In this dynamic market our life sciences group provides a full range of corporate, intellectual property, commercial, and regulatory services to some of the most innovative organisations in the sector.

Clients include large multi-nationals, pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, medical devices companies, universities and university spin-outs, investors, medical schools, and research institutes.

We provide a range of specialist services to clients operating in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector including:

  • Grey goods and parallel imports
  • IT and data protection
  • Licensing, know-how, and commercial agreements
  • Litigation and dispute resolution (including defending class actions)
  • Medical defence (clinical trials as well as doctors)
  • Patent litigation
  • Product liability
  • Research and development agreements
  • Stock exchange listings
  • Trade mark portfolio management and litigation

Our latest alerts, briefings & reports
Nabarro briefings and reports
  • ONEL: what constitutes genuine use of a Community Trade Mark?  
On 19 December 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its long-anticipated judgment in the ONEL/OMEL case. This reference from the Court of Appeal of the Hague sought guidance on the question of whether use of a Community Trade Mark (CTM) in a single member state constitutes genuine use in the Community.  View full briefing
  • OHIM's box-ticking approach to class heading filings fails to tick all the right boxes  
Community Trade Mark (CTM) applicants beware. OHIM (the CTM office) has again (15 October 2012) changed its practice on filings for "class headings". View full briefing
  • A change in the English Patent Court's attitude - clear the way  
The recent case of Cephalon Inc v Orchid Europe gives the first signs that the UK may be about to dismantle the hurdle - unknown in mainland Europe - of "clearing the way", which is put in the way of the launch of a generic pharmaceutical product.  View full briefing
  • Healthcare Industry Barometer 2010   
Welcome to The Healthcare Industry Barometer 2010. A question asked by many in our industry is where will this new Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government take UK healthcare? The secretary of state for health, Andrew Lansley talks of an NHS built on core beliefs of “freedom, fairness and responsibility” with a “plurality of providers” and guaranteed real increases in health spending. In the government’s white paper on health sector reform (‘Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS’), published on 12 July 2010, a number of themes are outlined: a patient-led NHS; an emphasis on clinical outcomes, rather than process targets; reductions in bureaucracy; ownership and accountability placed more in the hands of frontline staff, with the transfer of more power to health professionals; and the promotion of better public health and reform of the social care system. These are, without question, bold ambitions. View full briefing
Externally published articles
  • A change in attitudes towards making generics "clear the way"?   
Is the UK about to dismantle a hurdle to the launch of a generic pharmaceutical product, asks Nabarro's Jonathan Radcliffe. View full briefing
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