Richard Kaufman is a retired partner and corporate lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP. His practice included structuring and negotiation of strategic partnerships and collaborations, technology transfers and licenses, spin-out transactions, manufacturing agreements and clinical research agreements, as well as engagements for financings, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.
Formerly, Richard was co-chair of the Life Sciences Industry Team, managing partner of the San Diego office, vice chair of the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital Practice and a member of the Transactional & Securities and Chemical, Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Practices.
Richard has significant experience with a wide variety of corporate and securities transactions for companies in the life sciences industry, including developers of drugs, biologics, medical devices and discovery and informatics tools.
For 14 years, he served as general counsel of public life sciences companies engaged in the development and manufacture of proteins, peptides, small molecules and medical devices, as well as predictive in silico drug discovery tools.
Richard was a partner with Heller Ehrman LLP before joining Foley in 2008. Prior to joining Heller Ehrman, Richard’s in-house positions included general counsel to Trega Biosciences, Inc.; senior vice president, corporate development and law at Integra LifeSciences Corporation; vice president, secretary and general counsel at Telios Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; and executive vice president, secretary and general counsel at Invitron Corporation, a spin-off of Monsanto Company. Prior to moving in-house, Richard was a partner at Peper, Martin, Jensen, Maichel and Hetlage in St. Louis, Missouri, where he practiced for nine years. Previously, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert E. Seiler, Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court.
Representative Experience
Richard has represented clients in, among other matters, dozens of strategic partnership, licensing and collaboration negotiations with companies including Novartis, Hoffmann – La Roche, Amgen, Genentech, AstraZeneca, Wyeth, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Chiron, Biogen, Genzyme, Baxter, SmithKline, Warner-Lambert, G.D. Searle, Ciba-Geigy, Chugai, Astellas, Ono and others. He has been responsible for the negotiation of well over 100 manufacturing and development agreements for biologics, drugs and medical devices and for the negotiation of hundreds of clinical trial agreements, agreements with clinical research organizations and other clinical development service providers.
Awards and Recognition
Richard has been peer review rated as AV Preeminent®, the highest performance rating in the Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ system.
Richard has been selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© since 2007 in the field of Biotechnology Law and was named the 2021 Biotechnology and Life Sciences Practice “Lawyer of the Year” in San Diego by Best Lawyers®.
In 2010 – 2014 and 2016, The Legal 500 recognized Richard in the category of patent licensing and transactional and again for his work in health care – life sciences in 2013, 2015 and 2016, mergers, acquisitions and buyouts in 2014 and M&A/corporate and commercial – venture capital and emerging companies in 2015.
He has also been named by LMG Life Sciences as a Life Science Star in the fields of licensing and collaborations, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions and general corporate law.
Affiliations
- Member of the board of directors, BIOCOM (2008-2013)