Hogan Lovells advises Gilead Sciences' collaboration agreement with Merck

Hogan Lovells advises Gilead Sciences' collaboration agreement with Merck

The global law firm has advised in the collaboration agreement on long-acting HIV therapy

The American-British global law firm Hogan Lovells has pitched in to advise Gilead Sciences on its recently announced collaboration agreement with Merck & Co.

The two American pharmaceutical companies have come together to co-develop and co-commercialize innovative long-acting treatments for patients living with HIV.

Under the terms of the agreement finalised, Gilead and Merck will co-develop and co-commercialize long-acting oral and injectable products to treat HIV patients.

The treatments combine Gilead's proprietary investigational capsid inhibitor, lenacapavir, and Merck's proprietary investigational nucleoside reverse transcriptase translocation inhibitor, islatravir.

The wonder treatment will need necessary approvals since neither alone nor in combination, it is currently approved in any jurisdiction.

The Hogan Lovells team was led by Co-Head of the firm's Life Sciences Transactions Practice, partner Cullen Taylor (Northern Virginia, IPMT), and included partners Lauren Battaglia (Antitrust, Competition, and Economic Regulation, Washington, D.C.), Falk Schöning (Antitrust, Competition, and Economic Regulation, Brussels), senior counsel Dan Davidson (Tax, Pensions & Benefits, Washington, D.C.), senior associate Nadia Aksentijevich (IPMT, Washington, D.C.) and associates Rachel Eisen and Estefania McCarroll (both IPMT, Northern Virginia).