John A. Hurvitz

John Hurvitz is a partner, based in Washington, DC, who represents life sciences clients throughout the United States and in Europe and Asia.  Mr. Hurvitz co-chairs Covington's Life Sciences Industry Group and he heads the firm's Technology Transactions Group.

Life Sciences

For well over a decade, Mr. Hurvitz's practice has focused exclusively on meeting the specialized corporate, commercial, and transactional needs of the life sciences industry.  As a registered US patent attorney with an undergraduate degree in biology and substantial food and drug regulatory experience, he brings a unique multidisciplinary approach to the complex nexus of commercial, regulatory, and intellectual property issues that confront the industry.  

He has extensive experience structuring and negotiating all manner of commercial, corporate (including mergers, acquisitions and divestitures) and partnering transactions in the industry, ranging from early-stage research collaborations to global alliances to develop and commercialize products.  He has negotiated numerous late-stage and product commercialization deals and is fully conversant in the range of issues that these transactions present.  He has also assisted many major global pharmaceutical companies prepare their standard forms of agreement.

Mr. Hurvitz's clients include many of the leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as smaller emerging companies, including Abbott, AstraZeneca, Biosynexus, deCODE, Encysive, Eisai, GPC Biotech, Human Genome Sciences, King Pharmaceuticals, Medarex, Merck, Procter & Gamble, Schering-Plough, and Quest Diagnostics, who look to him not only for transactional counsel but also for strategic advice in asset management, enhancing performance, and dispute resolution under existing collaborations, and identifying industry best practice and other benchmarking advice.  His experience representing both innovators and acquirers of technology across a range of transactions enables Mr. Hurvitz to assist clients both in finding practical solutions to their most complex problems as well as in efficiently and cost-effectively handling routine corporate and commercial matters.

Global Health

Mr. Hurvitz is also active in global health matters.  He worked with the Center for Global Development to develop and implement an incentive-based market mechanism to stimulate the development and commercialization of vaccines to address critical unmet health needs in the developing world, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.  See Making Markets for Vaccines: Ideas to action www.cgdev.org/section/initiatives/_active/vaccinedevelopment, and E.R. Berndt and J.A. Hurvitz, Vaccine Advance-Purchase Agreements for Low-Income Countries: Practical Issues, 24 HEALTH AFFAIRS 653 (2005).  The Advance Market Commitment, as it is known, has been endorsed by the G8, which has charged the World Bank and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) to develop a proposal for a pilot program.  Mr. Hurvitz has been retained by the World Bank in connection with this work. He also represents GAVI, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, and the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise in connection with other global health activities.

Representative Matters

• Abbott Laboratories in its $3.7 billion acquisition of Kos Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Encysive Pharmaceuticals in exploring strategic options for the company, which involved conducting concurrent auctions of each of the entire company, its European business and certain specified assets, which ultimately resulted in the sale of the Company to Pfizer for $195 million.
• GPC Biotech in granting Yakult Honsha (Tokyo, Japan) exclusive rights to develop and commercialize satraplatin in Japan. GPC will receive ¥1.2 billion and is eligible for undisclosed regulatory milestones, plus a minimum of 21% royalties.
• Medarex in its worldwide collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb in an agreement allowing the two companies to jointly develop and commercialize MDX-010.
• AstraZeneca in a collaboration with Abbott to combine AstraZeneca’s statin, CRESTOR, with Abbott Pharmaceutical’s next generation fenofibrate product for the treatment of dyslipidemia.
• Eisai in its acquisition of four marketed oncology products from Ligand for $205 million, which involved extending employment offers to certain of Ligand’s sales force and other personnel.
• AstraZeneca in a complex and far-ranging alliance with Targacept in the field of cognitive disorders and schizophrenia, which included exclusive rights to a late-stage nicotinic compound, a research and development collaboration to identify additional nicotinic compounds, and options for AstraZeneca to obtain exclusive rights to products developed by Targacept outside the collaboration.  Targacept retained certain co-promotion rights in the United States and is eligible to receive up to approximately $300 million in payments from AstraZeneca, together with stepped double digit royalties.
• Schering-Plough in restructuring its collaboration with Millennium Pharmaceuticals to acquire exclusive rights to develop and commercialize INTEGRILIN, a GP IIb-IIIa inhibitor, in the US and Canada.

Previous Experience

• Salomon Brothers, Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures Group, Financial Analyst (1986-1988)

Honors and Rankings

• Chambers USA, recognized for Life Sciences/Commercial (2007-2008) 
• Global Counsel, consistently recognized as an "outstanding commercial lawyer" and one of only three or four "leading" corporate partnering lawyers in the US
• Legal Times, recognized as one of the top life sciences lawyer in Washington, DC (2006)
• LawDragon 500, New Stars (2006)

Pro Bono

• Advisor, World Bank and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in their efforts on behalf of the G7/8 to develop and implement a pilot Advance Market Commitment (AMC) to stimulate the development and introduction of new vaccines to address critical unmet health needs in the developing world, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
• Member, Expert Group on AMCs convened by the World Bank and GAVI to advise on the design and implementation of an AMC pilot project.
• Member, Global Health Forecasting Working Group,convened by the Policy Research Network at the Center for Global Development to analyze demand forecasting for health products, with a particular emphasis on products that are procured largely with external funding, to identify areas for improvement and to develop analytically-based policy recommendations.
• Outside Counsel, Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise.  Assisting the Enterprise with corporate structure, governance and other matters.
• Outside Counsel, Zero to Three, a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the healthy development of infants and toddlers by supporting and strengthening families, communities, and those who work on their behalf.
• Legal Advisor, Consortium for Child Welfare, the association of the non-governmental child welfare organizations serving the District of Columbia.  Represented the Consortium in its efforts to overhaul the child welfare laws and create a dedicated family division within the Superior Court in the District of Columbia.
• On behalf of the District of Columbia Bar’s Community Economic Development Project, prepared a comprehensive legal practice and issues manual for non-profit day care centers and provided training for attorneys who agreed to represent non-profit day care centers on a pro bono basis so as to help stimulate the creation of high quality, affordable day care in the District of Columbia for low- and moderate-income families.
• Legal Advisor, Housing and Urban Development Occupancy Task Force on People with Disabilities in Public Housing.  Advised the Task Force in connection with its efforts to improve access to public housing and related services for people with mental illness and developmental disabilities.
• On behalf of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, successfully represented a multi-ethnic group of highly prominent Bosnian citizens in their efforts to obtain political asylum in the United States at the height of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Memberships and Affiliations

• Latin American Youth Center, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors. Provides multicultural youth with a comprehensive set of social services and educational, work skills, advocacy and residential programs, and which operates several public charter schools and two Ben & Jerry Partnershops, all in the greater Washington, DC region.
• Georgetown University Law Center, Food and Drug Law, Adjunct Professor
• Haverford College, Class Chair

Publications and Speeches

• "Planning for Joint Promotion," Legal Times (6/20/2005), Author
• "Vaccine Advance-Purchase Agreements for Low-Income Countries: Practical Issues," 24 Health Affairs 653 (2005), Co-Author
• "Acquisitions and Partnering - Know Your Target," Life Sciences Law & Business, Vol. 1, Issue 5 (December 2004/January 2005), Co-Author