Deepa M. Rich

Goodwin Procter LLP

Redwood City

Transactions

Having grown up in Southeastern Africa, Rich thought she'd become a social justice lawyer.

But after gaining experience at a law firm working on an initial public offering for a medical device company, she realized she could make a bigger impact working with health care law.

"I grew up in Southeastern Africa, where people struggle with basic day-to-day needs and have very limited access to life saving therapies," Rich said. "Many of our clients are working to make therapies more broadly available. I find my passion working with companies that are seeking to make lives better, whether seeking to make entirely new therapies or lower the cost of existing therapies so that they can be more broadly distributed."

Rich was part of the team representing Nektar Therapeutics in its global development and profit-sharing deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The deal pairs cancer drugs from both companies. Bristol-Myers is running multiple clinical trials using the drug combination.

She said in all her deals, and especially with the Nektar-deal, it was important to get the right team together.

"Transactions like that move really quickly and you need to have good, experienced counsel on both sides ready to work around the clock and over weekends to get the deal done," Rich said. "It also helps to have a sophisticated team at the client that is experienced with these types of transactions."

Rich also represented several companies that access public markets through reverse mergers, most recently Exicure Inc.

"Alternative public offerings present unique challenges," Rich said. "This is because the regulatory agencies typically take a harder look at the disclosures and sometimes existing public companies may have corporate governance challenges to address."

For Rich, one of her proudest achievements is being part of building a team in California for Goodwin Procter that focuses on the life sciences.

"I'm very proud of the growing role that Goodwin's life sciences team plays in the California ecosystem," Rich said. "I love where I am, what I do and the team that we're building out here, and I'm hoping that in the years to come it will be something that I can look back on in my life and say, 'Wow, that was well done.'"

-- Henrik Nilsson