Health Care & Life Sciences

Foley is primed to strategically advise health care and life sciences companies through every step of their journey and all stages of their lifecycle. Companies in this space require expertise and resources to navigate rapidly accelerating digital technologies and shifting regulatory and IP environments that complicate the development of new tests, treatments, and business models. We provide business and legal solutions so you remain competitive in a constantly evolving market.

Our more than 200 dedicated health care and life sciences attorneys in 25 offices worldwide help our clients grow, empowering their business strategies and operating models to position them for success today and in the future. We recognize that speed matters in this evolving space where new legal challenges emerge daily. Foley excels at marshaling rapid-response teams to address clients’ needs quickly. Whether reacting to a data breach or facing a government investigation, we organize teams swiftly from offices across the U.S. to create tailored solutions that address your most pressing issues.

Foley is the preeminent law firm for health care providers and payors, academic medical centers, entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, laboratories, clinical research organizations, behavioral health and home health providers, and investors in the industry. We offer the full scope of legal services and provide turnkey solutions that bring to the table deep knowledge and experience in all facets of transactions, regulatory and compliance, data intelligence, IP, privacy and cybersecurity, and licensing and collaborating agreements. With deep regulatory experience coupled with a national transaction backbone, Foley delivers a one-stop solution for companies and investors.

We draw expertise from our decades of in-house experience at health care providers and vendors, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, as well as key state and federal government agencies. Our lawyers have been deeply immersed in these industries, acquiring substantial technical and scientific knowledge through graduate degrees and ongoing training that enables us to provide forward-looking, practical solutions.

Health Care

We appreciate that health care companies require lawyers who are business advisors, combining legal knowledge with market experience to develop tailored business solutions. Health care providers are often looking for legal help in newer areas, such as services for supply chain management, data lakes, and AI. They are also seeking counselors that can match the agility required of their companies to launch new initiatives. Foley couples precise strategic guidance with rapid turnarounds so clients can release new products and services and stay competitive in the marketplace.

We advise on critical areas including the corporate practice of medicine, enforcement, reimbursement, business alliances, and fund raising. We see dozens of transactions across multiple sectors of health care that inform new and evolving investment and operational models. Our attorneys have helped form some of the nation’s largest multi-institutional health care systems, private equity and VC firms, and strategics in subject areas as diverse as corporate structuring, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, value-based contracting, payor/provider structures, digital health, and PE-driven specialty practice consolidation.

Emerging Health

Our innovative and enterprising practitioners advise on emerging and high-growth spaces, including telemedicine and digital health, data analytics, AI, medical devices, behavioral health―including substance abuse and autism―where we provide end-to-end legal services.

Foley has more telemedicine and digital health clients and has done more telemedicine transactions than any other law firm, representing roughly 400 companies in the space. We know the industry’s issues, developments, and patterns. We have completed dozens of different 50-state surveys and research analyses of telemedicine and digital health laws, have drafted key legislation in multiple states, and we continue to survey the digital health landscape to ensure we remain situated to help take our clients’ transformative ideas and manifest them in the marketplace.

Life Sciences

Life sciences companies are competing to bring products to market amid fluctuating global financial markets and changing IP and regulatory environments. To help them navigate these conditions, our life sciences attorneys combine deep technical and scientific knowledge with excellence in all variety of IP, transactional, and regulatory matters. We lead the legal industry in breadth and depth in the pharmaceutical and regulated drug space. From patent prosecutions and due diligence, to M&A and joint ventures, to application submissions and consent decrees, Foley offers comprehensive legal services to life sciences companies at all levels of developmental and commercial stages.

Our life sciences team represents start-up and established enterprise clients developing strategies in forward-looking and high-growth areas. These include CAR-T cell therapy, CRISPR gene editing, liquid biopsy for early cancer detection, personalized/precision medicine, network science for predictive modeling, artificial intelligence/machine learning for diagnostics and big data issues, and IoT and blockchain for digital wearables and connected care devices.

Medical device and equipment clients today need help finding optimal solutions to harness new technology to reach patients. Foley brings its substantial expertise in health care, FDA regulatory and compliance, telemedicine and digital health, IP, and transactions to support our nationwide client base of device companies in these areas.