Dan Freshman advises clients on a variety of strategic transactions, joint ventures, investments, and partnerships in the life sciences, consumer & retail, sports, and technology sectors.
As a member of Ropes & Gray’s intellectual property transactions and venture capital & emerging companies practices, as well as the firm’s sports law, consumer & retail, and cryptocurrency & blockchain industry groups, Dan draws on his breadth of experience to advise on complex transactions across a variety of industries. For example, Dan represented clients in 3 of the top 10 largest biopharmaceutical licensing deals of 2020 measured by deal value, according to an analysis published in Fierce Biotech.
Prior to joining Ropes & Gray, Dan worked for the Major League Baseball Players Association in its Licensing & Business Affairs department, and at Canary, a connected home technology company based in New York. In addition to his legal practice, Dan has published articles on the evolving topic of name, image, and likeness (NIL) issues in the sports industry.
Experience
Life Sciences Licenses, Collaborations, and Strategic Alliances
- Advised Novo Nordisk in a research collaboration agreement with Flagship Pioneering and Metaphone Biotechnologies, a company designing drugs by combining machine learning and molecular mimicry, to develop up to two next-generation therapeutics for the treatment of obesity.
- Advised FogPharma in a collaboration with ARTBIO to co-develop new radiopharmaceuticals using FogPharma’s Helicon peptides platform with ARTBIO’s radiopharmaceutical AlphaDirect platform, in an effort to produce a new category of targeted therapy on cancer cells.
- Advised HilleVax on its exclusive license agreement with Chengdu Kanghua Biological Products Co., Ltd. (Kangh) for rights to Kangh’s hexavalent virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine candidate for norovirus outside of Greater China.
- Advised BlueRock Therapeutics in its strategic research and development alliance with FUJIFILM Cellular Dynamics to discover and develop off-the-shelf iPS cell therapies for ocular diseases, including dry age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal diseases.
- Advised Sanofi in an exclusive worldwide collaboration with Skyhawk Therapeutics for up to more than $2 billion to discover and develop novel small molecules that modulate RNA splicing for challenging oncology and immunology disease targets with limited or no therapeutic options.
- Advised Takeda Pharmaceuticals in various collaboration and license agreements, including its strategic multi-target partnership with Sosei Heptares to discover, develop and commercialize novel molecules that modulate G protein-coupled receptor targets, and its joint venture with Third Rock Ventures to form Ambys Medicines, a company founded to discover and develop novel cell and gene therapies for liver diseases.
- Advises Vivli, a nonprofit organization that collects and shares participant-level anonymized data from clinical trials, on various growth initiatives and product counseling matters relating to the development of its data sharing platform.
Retail, Consumer, Media, and Sports
- Advises the National Association of Basketball Coaches on licensing, sponsorship, and media matters.
- Advised various consumer-facing brands and franchise businesses on intellectual property aspects of whole-business securitizations and follow-on offerings, including European Wax Center, the Goddard School, and Planet Fitness.
- Advised EQT Private Capital Asia in partnership with Nord Anglia Education in its $1.25 billion acquisition of IMG Academy from Endeavor.
- Advised Atlantic Media on copyright, fair use, First Amendment and other intellectual property matters in connection with the acquisition of a majority ownership stake in The Atlantic by the Emerson Collective, a non-profit organization founded and run by Laurene Powell Jobs.
- Advised TSG Consumer Partners on intellectual property matters in connection with its minority investment in Huda Beauty, a beauty and cosmetics brand founded by beauty blogger and entrepreneur Huda Kattan.
Emerging Companies & Venture Capital
- Advised Sanofi in a $40 million strategic investment in Vigil Neuroscience, a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
- Advised Roivant Sciences in the creation of Telavant, a Roivant company focused on the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, with Pfizer Inc. Roche subsequently purchased Telavant for $7.1 billion upfront plus contingent consideration.
- Advised Philos & Partners SA in connection with its investment in Neurelis, Inc.’s $114 million Series D preferred stock financing.
- Advised Tmunity Therapeutics, a private clinical-stage biotherapeutics company, in connection with its Series Seed, Series A, and Series B financings, on various ongoing corporate and commercial matters, and in its eventual sale to Kite Pharma.
- Advised Vivo Capital on various venture investments in companies in the technology, healthcare and biotechnology sectors.