Deerfield Management and UNC-Chapel Hill Launch Pinnacle Hill Research Partnership

October 22, 2018

New York - Paul Hastings, a leading global law firm, announced today that the firm represented Deerfield Management on the creation of Pinnacle Hill, a life science research partnership with UNC-Chapel Hill. Pinnacle Hill is aimed at accelerating the discovery of new medicines by focusing on promising new drug research across a wide range of therapeutic areas.

Deerfield will commit $65 million of targeted funding Pinnacle Hill as well as provide drug development guidance, experienced project management oversight, and business strategy. These efforts will serve to improve and accelerate the product development process and allow founding scientists to concentrate on their research. Projects selected for support through Pinnacle Hill will receive a complete development plan with funding to support further research, and profits from successful projects, if any, will be shared by Deerfield and UNC-Chapel Hill.

The Paul Hastings team was led by partner Samuel Waxman, and also included partner Andrew Short and associate Brooke Schachner.

Paul Hastings has represented Deerfield in the formation of five other research partnerships with academic institutions, including The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Johns Hopkins University; Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University and The University of California at San Diego. In 2016, Paul Hastings advised Deerfield Management in connection with the formation of Bridge Medicines, a drug discovery company launched in partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine. The partnership with UNC-Chapel Hill is the second such partnership with a public university.

At Paul Hastings, our purpose is clear—to help our clients and people navigate new paths to growth. With a strong presence throughout Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the U.S., Paul Hastings is recognized as one of the world’s most innovative global law firms.