Deerfield Management and Vanderbilt University Launch Research Collaboration, Ancora Innovation

March 28, 2018

New York - Paul Hastings, a leading global law firm, announced today that the firm represented Deerfield Management on the creation of Ancora Innovation, a life science research partnership with Vanderbilt University. Ancora is aimed at accelerating early stage therapeutics based on novel biology, targets or insights that have yet to be fully developed and have the ability to be disease-modifying or -curing.

Deerfield will commit up to $65 million to Ancora and will guide the development process, provide operational support, and make additional capital investments into any spin-offs that emerge from Ancora projects. The selection and development of projects by Ancora will be managed through a joint operations committee comprising an equal number of Vanderbilt and Deerfield representatives.

Deerfield Management launches Ancora Innovation, a research partnership with Vanderbilt University.

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

Paul Hastings represented Deerfield in the formation of a similar research partnership with The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and one with Johns Hopkins University; and 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.

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.