Morrison Foerster (MoFo) has added another partner on the West Coast from Perkins Coie, this time to its life sciences transactions and licensing and technology transactions groups in San Diego. 

Matthew Ferry has joined the San Francisco-based firm as a partner after six years at Perkins Coie, where he served as counsel and focused on IP litigation and technology transactions. 

His arrival marks the firm’s sixth partner hire from Perkins Coie on the West Coast since the start of the year, the firm having added Michael Glaser, Mike LaPlante, Teresa Tate and Paul Navarro to its emerging companies and venture capital teams in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Daphne Higgs to its tech transactions group in Palo Alto. All were partners at Perkins Coie and together they had spent more than 60 years at their former firm. 

Michael Ward, global head of MoFo’s life sciences and healthcare group, said Ferry’s arrival came at “a time of increasing demand within the ever-growing global life sciences industry”. 

“In addition to bringing an excellent technical background and extensive experience in commercial life sciences and licensing transactions to the firm, Matt’s presence further expands our offerings on the ground in San Diego and across California, as well as in other key geographies nationally and globally,” Ward said. 

Ferry focuses his practice on a range of transactions in the tech and life sciences sectors, including early-stage startup issues, commercial agreements and supporting corporate teams in exits.

 “I am thrilled to work with my new colleagues in the firm’s life sciences and healthcare and technology transactions practices to help our clients navigate the rapidly growing area of transactions and licensing in the life sciences sector, while growing my practice on the ground in San Diego,” Ferry said. 

MoFo’s wider life sciences transactions and licensing practice consists of 22 lawyers across its offices in Boston, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai and Tokyo.

The firm added former FDA chief counsel and Trump White House lawyer Stacy Cline Amin to its life sciences group in Washington DC last July and a month later hired Palo Alto-based life sciences and healthcare patent prosecutor Hogene Choi from Baker Botts. 

Other prominent firms to have boosted their life sciences offering the States recently include K&L Gates, which in March secured a 12-strong team in Boston from local boutique Lando & Anastasi to beef up its life sciences and IP capabilities in the region. 

The month before UK firm Allen & Overy added a highly rated five-partner life sciences IP litigation team from Goodwin Procter in a move that also handed it an office in Boston, with team lead Elizabeth Holland becoming head of the firm’s US life sciences practice. 

Also in February Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati launched an office in Boulder, Colorado as it looked to deepen its ties to the state’s booming life sciences market. 

Perkins Coie did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ferry's departure.