Press Release
November 18, 2021

Goodwin Adds Life Sciences Collaborations & Licensing Partner Beni Surpin on the West Coast

Global law firm Goodwin today announced that Beni Surpin joined the firm’s Life Sciences practice as a partner in California, resident in both its Los Angeles and Silicon Valley offices.

“As a global destination practice for life sciences companies, we are continuing to scale our integrated offering in support of clients at all stages of the corporate and product lifecycle,” said Kingsley Taft, co-chair of Goodwin’s Life Sciences practice. “Beni is an incredibly talented lawyer and we are thrilled to have him on board as we expect the volume of industry collaborations and licensing transactions to continue to increase in the years ahead.”

Surpin counsels both international and U.S. companies on a variety of legal and business issues in complex technology, intellectual property and commercial transactions across multiple areas, including in the life sciences, medical devices, and healthcare industries. His practice focuses on collaborations and licenses between companies, from the early stages of proof of concept or drug discovery through to full commercialization. By allowing for transfer and sharing of intellectual property with clear ownership boundaries, Surpin helps clients generate and enhance product lines and services through access to new technologies. Surpin’s experience covers a broad spectrum of deals and structures through collaborations, licenses and acquisitions, service-based platforms, manufacturing, supply and distribution arrangements, clinical, services, and research and development agreements, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships and alliances.

“Goodwin’s global presence and highly collaborative culture enables us to provide a seamless one-stop-shop experience for every client’s corporate, IP, licensing, regulatory, and litigation needs,” said Surpin. “I’m excited to work with the firm’s extremely talented team as we help advance some of the most innovative companies of our time.”

Surpin joins Goodwin’s Life Sciences practice at a time of continuous growth. In the past three years, the practice has nearly doubled its headcount to more than 225 lawyers, science advisors, and patent agents. During this time, the practice expanded globally to Cambridge, UK, Paris, Los Angeles, and Santa Monica, and added additional regulatory, corporate, licensing, and intellectual property depth in London, Hong Kong, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York, and Boston.

Goodwin’s recent representative life sciences work includes advising Moderna from inception through the rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine; representing AbCellera Biologics on its $555.5 million IPO, one of biotech’s largest IPOs; and representing MyoKardia on its $13.1 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb.  

U.S. News – Best Lawyers’ 2022 edition named Goodwin the Biotechnology Law Firm of the Year for the seventh time in the last eight years. LMG Life Sciences named Goodwin Firm of the Year in the corporate and intellectual property categories, and distinguished Goodwin as a lifecycle firm, denoting rankings across all practice categories.