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MoFo Advises ARCH Venture Partners on Its Investment in Erasca

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Morrison & Foerster advised ARCH Venture Partners and certain other investors in connection with a Series B financing round it co-led with Cormorant Asset Management totaling $200 million in Erasca, a company on a mission to erase cancer.

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Morrison & Foerster advised ARCH Venture Partners and certain other investors in connection with a Series B financing round it co-led with Cormorant Asset Management totaling $200 million in Erasca, a company on a mission to erase cancer.Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Diego, Erasca is advancing multiple programs that shut down key cancer pathways in order to solve oncology’s hardest problems. The company will use the proceeds from the Series B financing round to support the clinical development of multiple promising oncology programs and further advance its in-house drug discovery pipeline.The MoFo deal team was led by Boston-based corporate partner Ori Solomon, co-chair of the firm’s Emerging Companies + Venture Capital Group, and included ECVC associates Dan Murray and Mike Maroni; technology transactions partner Matt Karlyn and associate Tiffany Quach; and patents partner Janet Xiao and scientific analyst Yujia Sun.Read the <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200427005115/en/Erasca-Raises-200-Million-Series-Financing" target="_blank">press release</a>.

MoFo Advises ARCH Venture Partners on Its Investment in Erasca

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Matt Karlyn has 25 years of experience in working with companies in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, medical device, and technology industries on a wide range of commercial life sciences, licensing, and technology transactions. His clients range from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups, and he regularly advises companies on matters involving IP commercialization, complex collaboration transactions, licensing initiatives, subscription-based economics, and business transactions related to the procurement, development, commercialization, and use of technology and life sciences products. He has also worked with a number of clients on corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions, as well as private equity and venture capital financing.Matt is ranked Band 1 by Chambers USA for Intellectual Property: Licensing in Massachusetts. Clients in Chambers describe Matt as: “accessible and engaged, and he is really focused on getting the right answer for us."<h4>Life Sciences</h4>Life sciences clients, including pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare companies, rely on Matt for his breadth of knowledge in licensing, collaboration, and commercialization strategies across a wide range of transactions designed to strengthen operations and maximize value. Matt’s clients come from sectors across the global economy and include emerging companies, privately held companies, and many of the world’s biggest brands.Matt has broad experience with commercial transactions and agreements in the life sciences space, including:<ul><li>Intellectual property and technology licenses</li><li>Collaboration and development transactions</li><li>Commercialization agreements</li><li>Supply and manufacturing transactions</li></ul><h4>Technology</h4>Matt regularly advises on the use of technology in business, pricing strategies, and market terms across a wide variety of technology transactions that benefit clients both large and small. He has extensive experience negotiating a wide range of transactions, including:<ul><li>Enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management licensing and implementation transactions</li><li>Cloud-based transactions including software-as-a-services, platform-as-a-service, and infrastructure-as-a-service.</li><li>Software licensing</li><li>Supply chain and procurement deals</li></ul>Additionally, Matt has worked on many of the largest outsourcing transactions in the United States, representing numerous Fortune 100 companies on information technology, business process, finance and accounting, facilities services, and other outsourcing transactions.Matt is a frequent author and speaker on topics pertaining to drafting and negotiating commercial technology, outsourcing, and licensing transactions. He has published over 25 articles (including chapters in two books), given over 175 presentations on licensing, technology, outsourcing, and data security, and is the co-author of A Guide to IT Contracting: Checklists, Tools, and Techniques.Matt is currently co-chair of the Legal and Regulatory policy group at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. He served as chair of the New England Chapter of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, and served for five years on the board of directors of Julie’s Family Learning Program, a wellness program for mothers and children in South Boston.

Matt Karlyn

Partner

Janet focuses her practice on worldwide patent procurement, patent portfolio management, and strategic planning for life sciences companies. Janet’s clients range from large multinational biopharmaceutical companies, such as Celgene and Genentech, to emerging startup companies around the world. She advises her clients on patent matters relating to various technologies, including antibody therapeutics, cell therapeutics, nanomedicine, gene therapy, drug delivery systems, diagnostics, and nutraceuticals.Recognized by Chambers as being highly sought after for patent prosecution and strategy mandates by innovators from around the world, Janet develops and strengthens her clients’ complex patent portfolios to maximize their commercial value. She is instrumental in developing strategies for multibillion-dollar patent portfolios for pharmaceutical clients. As impressed clients noted to Chambers, “Janet’s work is thorough, polished and always of the highest caliber. She is well equipped to advise international clients on patent prosecution and strategy in the biotech industry, drawing on substantial technical knowledge.”Janet works extensively in performing IP due diligence reviews in the contexts of VC investments, technology transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and marketing and manufacturing clearance for biopharmaceutical products. She helps some of the world’s most-sophisticated biopharmaceutical companies and investors assess potential risks and devise preemptive risk-management strategies for their product development and investments. She has led hundreds of IP due diligence projects, and is noted for her in-depth knowledge of patent landscapes in the fields of cancer immunotherapy, gene editing, next-generation sequencing, liquid biopsy, antibody manufacturing, and medical devices. Janet works regularly with patent litigators in the event of legal challenges by third-party competitors or vice versa, and she is frequently called upon to represent clients in litigation and post-grant proceedings.Janet is the Head of firm’s China Life Sciences Group and served as co-chair of the global Life Sciences Group from 2016 to 2019. She is among the very few IP attorneys in the world who are both equipped with solid skills in global strategic IP management and knowledgeable about IP issues unique to China and Chinese clients, and she has been the go-to counsel for IP issues in U.S./China cross-border transactions and operations in China. Chambers Global praises her as an outstanding IP lawyer “who is renowned for her work on IP issues concerning complex cross-border transactions, where she regularly advises Chinese clients.” In a recent edition of Chambers Global, a client says, “Janet . . . is very experienced in advising life sciences clients doing business in China and the US . . . She is highly responsive and always gives practical advice. Her IP expertise adds tremendous value to our business.”Since 2005, Janet has been actively involved in the leadership team of the Chinese-American Biopharmaceutical Society (CABS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to bridging the life sciences communities in the U.S. and China, including serving as president for the 2011–2012 term. She is also a member of BayHelix, a nonprofit organization of Chinese heritage leaders in the global life sciences and healthcare fields.

肖荐（Janet Xiao）博士的业务侧重于为生命科学公司处理在全球范围内的专利采购、专利组合管理和战略策划事宜。肖博士服务的客户范围广泛，包括大型跨国生物制药公司，例如赛尔基因公司（Celgene）和基因泰克公司（Genentech），也包括全球范围的新兴创业公司。她经常就与各种技术有关的专利事宜向客户提供法律意见，其中涉及的技术包括抗体疗法、细胞疗法、纳米医学、基因疗法、给药系统、诊断和和营养学等。来自全球的创新者纷纷向肖博士寻求专利申请和专利战略的法律咨询，这一点也得到了《钱伯斯指南》的认可。她帮助客户开发和加强其复杂的专利组合，从而为客户实现最大的商业价值。在为制药行业的客户制定数十亿美元专利组合的战略方面，肖博士发挥着重要的作用。《钱伯斯指南》曾引用客户评价称，“肖博士是我曾合作过的律师当中知识最渊博、效率最高的一位律师。她能很好地将专利组合的历史信息用于全球专利申请问题上。”肖博士针对风险投资、技术交易、并购和生物医药产品的市场推广与生产许可事宜开展广泛的知识产权尽职调查审查工作。她协助世界上一些最成功的生物制药公司和投资者，为其产品开发和投资评估潜在风险，并制定先发制人的风险管理策略。她曾牵头处理过数百个知识产权尽职调查项目，并凭借自己对癌症免疫治疗、基因编辑、新一代测序、液体活检、抗体制造和医疗设备领域的专利方面的深厚知识而闻名。肖博士时常与专利诉讼律师合作，处理由第三方竞争者提出的法律质疑，或对第三方竞争者提出的法律质疑，她还经常受聘代表客户处理专利诉讼和授予后程序。肖博士是美富中国生命科学业务组主管，她曾在2016至2019期间担任美富全球生命科学业务组的联席主管。肖博士是全球为数不多的既拥有很强的全球战略性知识产权管理技能，同时又对中国和中国客户独特的知识产权问题具有深刻理解的知识产权律师之一，她一直是处理中美跨境交易和在中国境内经营中所涉知识产权问题的首选律师。《钱伯斯全球指南》称赞她是一位优秀的知识产权律师，“她因处理与复杂跨境交易有关的知识产权问题工作而知名，经常代表中国客户处理这方面的事宜” 。在近期一版《钱伯斯全球指南》中，某客户评价称，“肖博士在为于中国和美国开展业务的生命科学客户提供法律意见方面，有非常丰富的经验。她非常负责而且总是提供切实可行的法律意见。她在知识产权方面的专业意见为我们的业务增添了巨大价值。”自2005年以来，肖博士一直积极参与北美华人生物医药协会（CABS）的领导工作。该协会是一家非营利组织，致力于成为连接中美两国生命科学领域的纽带。肖博士在2011至2012年间担任该协会主席。她还是百华协会（BayHelix）的成员。百华协会是一家非营利组织，由全球生命科技和医疗保健产业领域的华人精英组成。

Janet Xiao

Dr. Yujia Sun focuses her work on patent drafting and prosecution and strategic planning of patent portfolios. She also has extensive experience in IP due diligence inquiries, including freedom-to-operate and patentability analyses, and complex target IP evaluation for investors and acquirers, with an emphasis on biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.Dr. Sun has worked with a wide range of clients, including startup biotech companies, large pharmaceutical companies, universities, independent inventors, and venture capitalists. She has worked with clients in a number of areas, including gene therapy, antibody therapeutics, cell therapeutics, immunotherapy, next-generation sequencing, and drug delivery systems.Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Dr. Sun worked as a Biotechnology Intern at the Office of Industrial Liaison of New York University, where she helped develop the business plan for a startup to be formed around a pharmacotherapy device invented by NYU faculty. Her role included researching the relevant technology, analyzing the market potential and competitive landscape, and designing strategies for technological improvement and securing regulatory approval requirements.Dr. Sun received her Ph.D. (dissertation pass with distinction) and M.S. in biology from New York University, where she studied transcriptional regulation and pattern formation in early embryos and concentrated on developmental genetics, epigenetics, genomics, next-generation sequencing techniques, molecular biology, and confocal microscopy. She received her B.S. in biological sciences from Tsinghua University in China.Dr. Sun is fluent in English and Mandarin.

Yujia Sun

Scientific Analyst

Life Sciences + Healthcare

Emerging Companies + Venture Capital