What We Do

Ulmer & Berne’s Life Sciences Practice Group is broad both in its scope and breadth. It provides representation to domestic and international clients on a nationwide basis and covers numerous areas of the law. Our group has an established national presence defending companies in matters that are complex both legally and scientifically. The group defends companies in class action lawsuits, consolidated state proceedings, and federal multidistrict litigation, as well as individual lawsuits.

Often, cases handled by Ulmer’s Life Sciences Practice Group appear on the front pages of our newspapers, as well as the nightly news. The group has represented clients in, among others, litigation involving pain medications, gastrointestinal medications, ADHD medications, hormone replacement therapy, antidepressants, oral contraceptives, phenylpropanolamine (PPA), phen-fen, ephedra, amiodarone, latex gloves, and catheters. In some of those cases, the group has defended clients against sensational stories of homicide or suicide supposedly associated with the clients’ products.

The group serves as national counsel for numerous public and private companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and dietary supplement industries, and acts as regional counsel for a variety of others. Current representation includes several class actions, federal multidistrict litigations, state-consolidated proceedings, and a wide variety of individual high-exposure lawsuits. In addition, the group serves as exclusive national product liability counsel for some of those companies.

We believe that we offer unique, high-value legal services to the pharmaceutical, medical device, and dietary supplement industries. Our group includes various areas of expertise in addition to legal. For example, members of our group have backgrounds in the disciplines of pharmacy, pharmacology, chemistry, biochemistry, medical technology, as well as business, negotiations, and engineering.

In addition, we assist our life sciences clients with their most pressing transactional matters. Our team works seamlessly to handle a wide range of transactional matters for our clients, including initial entity formation, corporate governance, risk assessment, risk management, due diligence for product acquisitions and mergers, advice and counsel relating to regulatory matters, licensing, venture capital, other debt and equity financings, and assistance in acquiring or reducing premiums for product liability insurance. We maintain a fully searchable database of every adverse event reported to the Food and Drug Administration since 1969 for every pharmaceutical product sold in the United States, which permits the compilation of statistics vital to those areas of representation. We strive to provide creative, innovative, and effective legal strategies as we help our dynamic clients explore new alliances, ventures, and collaborations.

Our Life Sciences Practice Group also includes representation of companies on intellectual property law (including copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret prosecution and litigation), bioscience law, and the laws applicable to the acquisition, licensing, distribution, transfer, and disposition of technology and pharmaceutical products.