Kathleen Kean

Kathleen Kean is a partner in the firm’s Strategic Technology Transactions and Licensing practice and a member of the Technology and Life Sciences groups. Kathleen represents private and public biotech, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device companies in connection with intellectual property, commercial and M&A transactions. Kathleen’s experience includes counseling clients in connection with licensing arrangements, collaboration agreements, pre-clinical, clinical and commercial contracts, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, and IP migration transactions. Further, Kathleen routinely acts as outside general counsel for biotech companies in managing their licensing and contract needs.

Collaborations

• Aldeyra in its exclusive option agreement with AbbVie regarding reproxalap; potential deal value in excess of $400 million plus royalties and a profit/loss share 
• bit.bio in its collaboration and option agreement with BlueRock for iPSC-derived regulatory T cells 
• Nanobiotix in its co-development and commercialization agreement with Janssen for a potential first-in-class radioenhancer; upfront value of up to $60 million plus up to $1.8 billion in success payments, additional amounts for additional indications and double-digit royalties on sales of the compound 
• Intellia Therapeutics in the expansion of their collaboration with Regeneron
• Avista Therapeutics in its partnership with Roche to develop gene therapy vectors; potential deal value greater than $1 billion
• Orna Therapeutics in its license and collaboration agreement with Merck for up to $3.5 billion
• Intellia Therapeutics in the creation and launch of a of a CAR-T company, in collaboration with Blackstone Life Sciences and Cellex Cell Professionals
• Relay Therapeutics in its collaboration with Genentech for the development and commercialization of a SHP2 inhibitor; with a potential deal value of $795 million plus royalties and the right to opt in to a US profit/cost share
• Ultragenyx in its collaboration with Solid Biosciences for the development and commercialization of gene therapies; with a potential deal value of $255 million plus royalties
• Kymera Therapeutics in its multi-program collaboration with Sanofi for the development and commercialization of first-in-class protein degraders; with a potential deal value in excess of $2 billion plus royalties
• Navitor Pharmaceuticals in its development and option agreement with Supernus Pharmaceuticals for the discovery and development of mTORC1-targeted therapeutics; with a potential deal value of $475 million plus royalties
• Ultragenyx in its partnership with Daiichi Sankyo whereby Daiichi Sankyo acquired a license to Ultragenyx’s manufacturing platform; with a potential deal value in excess of $150 million plus royalties
• ImmuNext in its option and license agreement with Curis for the development and commercialization of anti-VISTA antibodies; with a potential deal value in excess of $230 million plus royalties
• ImmuNext in its licensing and research collaboration with a major pharmaceutical company focused on autoimmune disease; with a potential deal value in excess of $600 million
• Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in the 2019 changes to its 2014 RNAi therapeutics alliance with Sanofi in rare genetic diseases
• Scholar Rock in its strategic collaboration with Gilead to develop TGFβ inhibitors; with a potential deal value of $1.5 billion
• Fresenius Medical Care Holdings in the acquisition of worldwide rights to Humacyte’s investigational human acellular vessel
• Sage Therapeutics in its strategic collaboration with Shionogi & Co., Ltd. to develop and commercialize SAGE-217 in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea
• Wave Life Sciences in the negotiation of a global strategic collaboration with Takeda in central nervous system disorders; with an upfront payment of $110 million and potentially more than $2 billion in milestone payments
• Dimension Therapeutics in its gene therapy research collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania
• Tetragenetics in its negotiation of a collaboration with MedImmune for a multi-target ion channel drug discovery program

M&A

• AvroBio in its merger with Tectonic
• Arkuda Therapeutics in its Option and Asset Purchase Agreement with Janssen; option to purchase Arkuda’s lysosomal function enhancers
• Relay Therapeutics in its acquisition of ZebiAI, with a deal value potentially in excess of $170 million
• Ultragenyx in its acquisition of GeneTx
• Altimmune in its acquisition of Spitfire Pharma
• Nimbus Therapeutics in the negotiation of a strategic alliance with Celgene Corporation in immunology
• Fresenius Kabi in its purchase of Merck KGaA’s pipeline of biosimilar candidates for €156 million upfront and up to €500 million in milestones
• Ampersand Capital Partners and 1315 Capital in the acquisition of Genoptix, Inc., a provider of comprehensive testing solutions in hematology and solid tumor molecular profiling, from Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation
• Nimbus Therapeutics in its sale of Nimbus Apollo and its Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase (ACC) inhibitor program to Gilead Sciences for $400 million upfront and up to an additional $800 million in development milestone payments
• Alkermes in the sale of its manufacturing facility and the manufacturing and royalty revenue associated with products manufactured at the facility to Recro Pharma, Inc. for $170 million

Prior to re-joining Goodwin in 2014, Kathleen was an in-house attorney at RainDance Technologies, Inc. and was in-house at EMC Corporation. Kathleen began her legal career at Goodwin in 2004. Prior to attending law school, Kathleen worked as a mechanical engineer.

While in law school, Kathleen was the executive editor of the Boston University Journal of Science & Technology Law.

Speaker, “Guide to Raising Capital and Retaining Ownership,” MassBio – Locust Walk 2022, November 29, 2022