US law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius has bolstered its life sciences offering in London with the hire of a lawyer apiece from Baker McKenzie and Covington & Burling. 

IP litigator Hiroshi Sheraton has joined the 2,200-lawyer firm after more than a decade as a partner at Baker McKenzie. Meantime Luciana Griebel specialises in M&A in the life sciences and tech industries and joins Morgan Lewis as a partner having been an associate at Covington; she will take up her post on 6 September.

At Morgan Lewis Sheraton is expected to assist clients on high-stakes IP, patent and brand matters, while Griebel will focus on global acquisitions and divestitures, private equity transactions and strategic investments.

Commenting on the hires, Morgan Lewis chair Jami McKeon said that as innovation continues apace in the life sciences sector, the firm’s clients “count on us to assert or defend patent cases in global markets and assess and mitigate transactional risk as they pursue acquisitions and partnerships in the industry”.

Sheraton regularly coordinates pan-European and global IP litigation and advises life sciences clients on international IP strategies for patent litigation and other forms of exclusivity. He was a partner at McDermott Will & Emery before joining Baker McKenzie in 2014 and also represents clients in IP licensing, collaboration and development matters.

Meantime Griebel brings experience representing tech and life sciences companies in significant transactions and also works with clients on corporate governance and compliance matters. At Covington she advised Merck in a number of deals, including its €2.1bn acquisition of Antelliq Group, and Renesas Electronics on its €4.9bn acquisition of Dialog Semiconductor. 

McKeon added: “Hiroshi and Luciana each bring a background and targeted skillset to help global pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies protect their products and brands and achieve their growth objectives.”

Morgan Lewis also bolstered its life sciences offering in Washington DC in March, when it hired Stephen Forster from Otsuka Pharmaceutical to advise companies in the sector on drug pricing and commercial contracting matters. 

It also hired IP partners Alexander Klett and Christoph Mikyska in Munich in July from Reed Smith, at the same time adding private equity partners Sebastian Dexheimer from Milbank in Frankfurt.