Stephanie Parker Palmer

Stephanie is a transactional attorney who advises public and private biotechnology companies on a variety of deals, including partnering arrangements, strategic collaborations and licensing. She brings a wealth of business acumen to her practice, providing her clients pragmatic legal advice and guidance from term sheet to closing. Stephanie excels at coordinating smooth transactions, effectively and efficiently focusing clients on the matters that are most important to them. She collaborates proactively across Cooley’s practice groups to anticipate client needs.

Stephanie has extensive experience in an array of key commercial transactions for life sciences companies, including:

• Option agreements
• License agreements
• Collaboration agreements
• Drug discovery agreements
• Asset purchase agreements
• University license agreements
• Confidential disclosure agreements (CDAs)
• Master services agreements (MSAs)
• Materials transfer agreements (MTAs)
• Sponsored research agreements (SRAs)
• Supply agreements

She is an enthusiastic representative of the Reston office on the firm’s Women’s Initiative. She is also chair of the special counsel committee and helped launch the first Special Counsel Academy.

Stephanie’s transactions include representing:

• Araris Biotech in its 2025 definitive agreement to be acquired by Japan-based Taiho Pharmaceutical for up to $1.14 billion in cash
• Autolus Therapeutics in its 2024 strategic collaboration with BioNTech, which included a license for certain binders and options for BioNTech to access a suite of Autolus target binders and cell programming technologies to support BioNTech’s development of in vivo cell therapy and antibody-drug conjugate candidates, as well as options to co-commercialize Autolus’ AUTO1/22 and AUTO6NG programs, with an upfront payment of $50 million and $200 million in additional equity (plus option, milestone and royalty payments)
• Immatics in its 2023 multiplatform collaboration with Moderna, spanning various therapeutic modalities including bispecifics, cell therapy and cancer vaccines, with an upfront payment of $120 million and up to $1.7 billion in milestone payments, plus royalties and an option to profit share
• Immatics in its 2022 expansion of its collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb to pursue the development of multiple allogeneic off-the-shelf T cell receptor-engineered T cell (TCR-T) and/or chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) programs, with an upfront payment of $60 million and up to $700 million in milestone payments, plus royalties