Ropes & Gray Advises Partners Group on its Acquisition of Pharmathen

Ropes & Gray has advised Partners Group, the global private markets firm, on its acquisition of Pharmathen, a European pharmaceutical company, from international investment firm BC Partners on behalf of its clients. The transaction values Pharmathen at an enterprise value of around EUR1.6 billion. 

Founded in 1969 in Athens, Pharmathen is a contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) specialised in advanced drug delivery technologies for complex generic pharmaceutical products. 

Partners Group will work closely with Pharmathen's management team, led by Chief Executive Officer Dimitris Kadis, on initiatives to scale the business in Europe and globally, particularly in the US. 

The Ropes & Gray team was led by private equity transactions partner John Newton, with counsel Vicky McGrath and associates Laura Kayani and Victoria Srivastava, all based in London. Other members of the team included: life sciences regulatory partners Albert Cacozza (Washington DC) and Lincoln Tsang (London) and associates Hannah Kerr-Peterson and Daisy Bray (London) and associate Michael Purcell (Washington DC); IP partner and Melissa Rones (Boston); tax partner Andrew Howard, privacy, data protection and cybersecurity partner Rohan Massey and trainee Emilio Fabrizi; litigation & enforcement counsel Paige Berges, associate Michael Harris, and trainee Abbey Shaw (all based in London). 

Ropes & Gray is recognised as one of the world’s leading health care and life sciences industry law firms. The firm won nearly every health care-focused legal industry award in 2020, including the FT’s Innovative Lawyers 2020 top honour for guiding clients through the COVID-19 pandemic. Other awards included being named Law Firm of the Year for Health Care by The American Lawyer, U.S. News - Best Lawyers, and Law360 (an award the firm has won for the second year in a row). Please click here for examples of the firm’s work in this area, alongside business and legal trends that the team has seen within the health care and life sciences industries in 2020. 

In April this year, the firm strengthened its industry-leading life sciences practice with the appointment of Dr Lincoln Tsang, one of world’s leading lawyers in the field, as a partner and head of its European Life Sciences practice, based in London.  Further details can be found here.