Alan W. Tamarelli

Alan’s practice focuses on the representation of biotech, pharma, medical device and other life sciences companies in connection with technology-driven strategic transactions. He advises companies on research collaborations and development agreements, intellectual property and technology licensing agreements, and commercial collaborations, including joint ventures, profit-sharing arrangements and co-promotion agreements. He also has experience with manufacturing, distribution, supply and quality agreements, clinical trial agreements, M&A transactions, and life sciences industry-specific matters and counseling.

Before joining Cooley, Alan was a partner at Latham & Watkins, where he was a member of the firm’s corporate department, as well as the healthcare and life sciences, data and technology transactions, emerging companies, and mergers & acquisitions practices.

In addition, Alan brings more than 10 years of in-house experience, having worked at the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. before Latham & Watkins. As counsel for corporate transactions at Merck, he worked closely with business development groups on biotech and pharma strategic transactions. Earlier at the company, he was responsible for successfully managing and resolving significant litigation and regulatory matters specific to the pharma and biotech industries.

Alan’s representative transactions include representing:

• Centrexion Therapeutics in a developmental product licensing transaction with Sanofi*
• Aligos Therapeutics in COVID-related research collaboration with KU Leuven*
• Jnana Therapeutics in a research collaboration and licensing agreement with Roche*
• Dicerna Pharmaceuticals in a collaboration and cross-licensing agreement with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals*
• Arctic Vision in a licensing transaction with Clearside Biomedical*
• Portal Instruments in connection with a research collaboration with LEO Pharma*
• Centrexion Therapeutics in connection with a collaboration and licensing agreement with Eli Lilly related to a non-opioid pain medication*
• Jnana Therapeutics in connection with a research collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences to discover novel medicines to treat central nervous system disorders*
• Chinese biotechnology company CStone Pharmaceuticals in connection with an immuno-oncology licensing transaction with Agios Pharmaceuticals for the Greater China market*
• Idera Pharmaceuticals in connection with a clinical oncology collaboration agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb*
• Confluence Life Sciences, a biotech company developing kinase inhibitors for oncological and other uses, in connection with its sale to Aclaris Therapeutics*
• Histogenics Corp., a developer of restorative cell therapies, in a licensing, development and commercialization agreement with MEDINET*
• Merck (as outside counsel) in connection with investment in and research collaboration with Serimmune related to use of Serimmune’s immune mapping platform technology*
• Portal Instruments in connection with a research collaboration and licensing agreement with Takeda related to Portal’s needle-free drug delivery device*
• Royal DSM on intellectual property licensing and technology transfer issues related to transactions expanding its health, nutrition and materials alliance with Amyris*
• The Carlyle Group on intellectual property-related aspects of its acquisition of AMRI, a pharma and biotech contract research and manufacturing organization*
• Pint Pharma International in connection with a supply agreement with Shire for a rare disease product to be marketed in Latin America*
• Merck in connection with a broad research collaboration and license agreement with Ablynx for the design and development of antibodies against multiple targets in the immuno-oncology field*
• Merck in the divestiture via out-license to Allergan of a major phase 2 research program in a high-profile and competitive therapeutic space*
• Merck in establishing a worldwide commercialization and research collaboration (essentially a virtual joint venture) with Bayer for the development and commercialization of marketed and developmental compounds for rare and difficult-to-treat conditions, plus a series of ancillary agreements necessary to effectuate collaboration across jurisdictions*
• Merck in an  acquisition  from Novartis via in-licensing of a portion of the worldwide rights to market a successful antibiotic product, along with associated technology transfer and transition services arrangements*
• Merck in the sale of a research subsidiary to Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, and associated cross-license agreements related to key patents and know-how*
• Parties to numerous research collaboration and license agreements between large pharma and smaller biotech collaborators for the discovery and development of compounds, peptides or antibodies of interest*
• Merck in the acquisition via in-license of certain territory rights to commercialize a successful product earlier out-licensed to AstraZeneca, as well as related transition and associated supply and regulatory agreements*
• Parties to approximately a dozen high-profile clinical trial collaboration agreements between pharma and biotech companies in the competitive immuno-oncology field, including agreements related to combined clinical use of their respective therapies*
• Merck in connection with platform technology in-license, tech transfer and collaboration with Codexis for the use of a proprietary protein engineering platform*
• Merck in a broad and high-profile collaboration with the MD Anderson Cancer Center to design and perform a portfolio of novel clinical studies in the immuno-oncology field*
• Merck in connection with an “authorized generic” agreement with Teva, along with associated licensing, pharmacovigilance and supply agreements*

Alan’s other experience includes:

• As in-house counsel, managing and successfully resolving thousands of consolidated federal and state product liability, consumer and toxic tort lawsuits, and numerous class-action lawsuits*
• As outside counsel at a large, international law firm before joining Merck, acting as trial and litigation counsel in various commercial litigation cases in federal and state courts, and representing corporate clients in mergers and acquisitions, as well as securities filings and disclosures*

*Matter handled prior to joining Cooley