PharmaVentures Podcast Series, Edition 13

Listen as Colin McCall, Partner – Life Sciences and Deep Tech at Taylor Wessing, and Oliver Pumfrey, Managing Director at FTI Consulting, talk with Adrian Dawkes about law and tax during the licensing and M&A deal making process. They discuss a range of topics where different advisors use their expertise to help you achieve the best deal and avoid pitfalls in the future:

  • The deal stages when expert advice can save you time and money.
  • 5 key areas relating to tax in a licensing deal, and the risk of a “dry tax charge”.
  • The importance of obtaining legal advice before you sign a term sheet.

 

To find out what the deal making landscape looks like for you, you can request an initial complimentary consultation with the experts in this podcast:

FTI Consulting for Tax advice – oliver.pumfrey@fticonsulting.com

Taylor Wessing for Legal advice – C.McCall@taylorwessing.com

PharmaVentures for Deal Making and Strategic Planning advice – enquiries@pharmaventures.com

About the Interviewees:

Colin McCall is a partner in Taylor Wessing‘s market leading life sciences team and is one of the UK’s leading life sciences licensing and commercialisation lawyers having more than 20 years’ experience of acting almost exclusively in the sector.

He advises clients throughout their lifecycle (all the way from start-up/spin-out to multinational listed companies) on the commercialisation of their intellectual property rights. In particular, advising on licensing deals, collaborations and R&D projects, distribution and manufacturing arrangements and has a particular focus on the biotech sector with a strong therapeutics, synbio and agbio client following.

Colin has a 1st class degree in cell biology and a masters in environmental technology.  Colin also sits on the BIA’s Engineering Biology Advisory Committee.

Oliver Pumfrey is a Managing Director at FTI Consulting. He manages the Life Sciences Tax team and is based in London.

Oliver has over 17 years’ experience but prior to joining FTI Consulting, he worked in an industry where he was responsible for all taxes across the EMEA region for a multinational US-listed group. Prior to that, Oliver spent 10 years with PWC, working across a number of tax areas including corporate tax, employment taxes and the tax technical knowledge team.

Having joined FTI Consulting in 2016, Oliver supports Life Sciences clients across a range of tax matters including R&D incentive claims for large enterprises and SMEs and related transactional advice and planning. He also advises on the Enterprise Investment Scheme, licensing of intellectual property rights and Patent Box elections in regard to optimal timing and the potential benefits.

Oliver holds a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from Imperial College, London and is an Associate of the Royal College of Science. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant (ACA) in 2010 and became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in 2020.

About the Presenter:

Adrian Dawkes is a Managing Director at PharmaVentures and has been with the company since 2007. Adrian has led multiple consultancy, licensing and M&A mandates.

During his professional career, Adrian has significant multi-discipline expertise spanning research and development through to sales, marketing and business development. Adrian has over 30 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and consultancy services sectors. Adrian holds a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Immunochemistry.