Crowell & Moring has merged with dealmaking boutique Faber Daeufer & Itrato, significantly boosting its life sciences and emerging companies capabilities.
The tie-up sees 24 lawyers and around 25 further professionals join Crowell, which went live on 1 June. It sees the launch of Crowell Life Sciences, combining Faber’s life sciences-focused venture finance and R&D transactional practice with Crowell’s existing capabilities across healthcare regulatory, government contracting, export controls, data privacy, patent prosecution and healthcare and IP litigation.
As part of the deal Crowell has expanded its footprint into Boston, the latest in a string of law firms to be drawn to the city by its strong economic growth and thriving tech and life sciences sectors. Some Faber team members have also joined Crowell across New York, San Francisco and London, the firm said.
Philip Inglima, chair of Crowell’s management board, told Bloomberg Law the firm was prioritising growing its transactional practice and Faber brought it “great credibility in life sciences and depth in the emerging companies and venture capital practice, where we only had a limited amount before”.
The Faber team included former in-house lawyers and business executives in biopharma, private fund professionals and contract specialists from pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations. Last year the firm advised Google Ventures on a $125m financing round for drugmaker Santa Ana Bio among other matters, according to Bloomberg Law. It also recently advised drugmaker Tasca Therapeutics in a Series A financing round worth $52m.
Former Faber principal Gregory Ikonen has been made chair of Crowell Life Sciences, which includes 40 lawyers according to the firm’s website. Joseph Faber, the firm’s founder and former managing partner, is also helping to lead the practice.
“We have been seeing our clients struggle with several powerful and accelerating trends in the life sciences industry,” Faber said. “These include increased cross-border engagement with investors and with business and scientific partners, even by our early-stage clients, as well as the increased complexity of designing R&D and go-to-market strategies in a rapidly changing regulatory and public policy environment. We believe the Crowell and Faber combination will best position us to support life sciences clients as they navigate this new landscape.”
Crowell’s roughly 600 lawyers brought in revenue of $626m in 2024, according to data published by American Lawyer, against profit per equity partner of just over $1.2m.
The firm’s tie-up with Faber follows the number of mergers involving at least one US law firm reaching 22 in the first quarter, according to Fairfax Associates, a slight rise on year-prior levels. The largest in that time was Atlanta-based Troutman Pepper’s (1,074 lawyers) with Dallas-based Locke Lord (556) to create Troutman Pepper Locke. At the start of this month New York firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel also combined with Anglo-Australian firm Herbert Smith Freehills to form HSF Kramer, a 2,700-lawyer firm with revenue of more than $2bn.
Most mergers are smaller, with 77% in the first quarter involving firms similar to Faber, with between five and 20 lawyers, according to Fairfax.
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