Michael Spera practices in the corporate department in Ropes & Gray’s Boston office. He represents public and privately held companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and healthcare industries in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and carve-outs, royalty monetizations, and other complex transactions. He also regularly counsels clients in healthcare and life sciences, among other sectors, on a wide assortment of corporate governance and commercial matters.

Experience

  • Represented Johnson & Johnson in connection with numerous acquisitions and divestitures of pharmaceutical and medical device assets and businesses.
  • Represented Blackstone Life Sciences in the purchase of Sutro Biopharma’s royalty interests in Vaxcyte’s products, including VAX-24, for up to $390 million.
  • Advised Radius Pharmaceuticals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Radius Health, Inc., a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on bone health, in the sale of a portion of its royalty and commercial milestone stream in elacestrant, a treatment approved for certain types of mutated advanced or metastatic breast cancer, to DRI Healthcare.
  • Represented HBC, the holding company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson’s Bay, and Saks OFF 5th, in partnerships with Insight Partners to establish Saks Fifth Avenue’s ecommerce businesses as standalone entities, to be known as Saks.com and Saksoff5th.com.
  • Represented Vertex Pharmaceuticals in its acquisition of Exonics Therapeutics for $245 million plus contingent consideration.
  • Represented a leading pharmaceutical company in its sale of a synthetic royalty interest in its monoclonal antibody therapy.
  • Represented a leading global pharmaceutical company in its divestiture of global rights to its product intended for the treatment of idiopathic multicentric Castleman’s disease.
  • Represented a leading global pharmaceutical company in its acquisition of clinical stage assets intended for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy.
  • Represented a leading global pharmaceutical company in its divestiture of its U.S. and Canadian rights to its pancreatic enzyme replacement product.
  • Represented a leading global medical device company in its acquisition and license of assets for use in the development and commercialization of its existing knee implant offerings.
  • Represented a leading global pharmaceutical company in a series of divestitures of its Canadian and Japanese rights to a pain management drug franchise.
  • Represented a leading global medical device company in its divestiture of its vertebral augmentation business. 
  • Represented a leading global medical device company in its acquisition of a novel technology for the treatment of Meibomian Gland Dysfunction, a primary cause of dry eye disease.
  • Represented a leading global pharmaceutical company in a series of FDA-issued priority review voucher acquisitions. 
  • Represented Symmetry Surgical, a leading provider of surgical instrumentation and specialty devices, in its take-private acquisition by RoundTable Healthcare Partners.
  • Represented a leading global pharmaceutical company in a co-promotion arrangement.

Areas of Practice