Mizuna Sekine
Associate
She/Her/Hers
Silicon Valley
mizuna.sekine@lw.com
+1.650.470.2181
PRACTICES
- Capital Markets
- Emerging Companies & Growth
- Life Sciences Licensing
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Technology Transactions
INDUSTRIES
- Artificial Intelligence
- Digital Health
- Healthcare & Life Sciences
- Technology
EDUCATION
- LL.M., Stanford Law School,
- Diploma, The Legal Training and Research Institute of Japan,
- J.D., Keio University,
- M.Chem in Chemistry, University of Oxford,
LANGUAGES SPOKEN
- English
- Japanese
PROFILE
Mizuna Sekine is an associate in the Bay Area offices of Latham & Watkins and a member of Latham’s Corporate Department and Healthcare & Life Sciences Practice.
Mizuna advises private and public companies primarily in the life sciences area in various transactional matters, including licenses, collaborations, technology transfer, mergers, acquisitions, and public offerings.
Mizuna brings clients technical insight coupled with her passion for bringing innovation to market. She regularly advises clients on matters including:
- Intellectual property and technology licenses
- Joint ventures and strategic alliances
- Venture financings, public offerings, M&A, and other strategic transactions
- Manufacturing, supply, distribution, and other commercial agreements
- Research, development, and clinical trial agreements
Mizuna earned a Master of Chemistry degree at Oxford University (Trinity College) for her work in Dr. Colin Bain’s laboratory on chemistry of surfaces and interfaces. She is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional in both Europe (CIPP/E) and the United States (CIPP/US).
Mizuna maintains an active pro bono practice, regularly advising non-profit organizations in relation to their regulatory and commercial needs.
EXPERIENCE
Mizuna’s experience includes advising:
- Coherus BioSciences, a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company, in its:
- US$40 million divestment of YUSIMRY (adalimumab-aqvh) to Hong Kong King-Friend Industrial Co. Ltd.
- US$76.2 million combined term loan and product royalty financing agreement with Barings
- CeriBell, Inc., a commercial-stage medical technology company focused on transforming the diagnosis and management of patients with serious neurological conditions, in its upsized initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market
- PROCEPT BioRobotics Corporation, a surgical robotics company focused on advancing patient care by developing transformative solutions in urology, in its follow-on offering of its common stock
- Arcus Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, in its US$250 million strategic financing with Hercules Capital
- Ascendis Pharma A/S, a commercial-stage biopharma company, in its US$150 million capped synthetic royalty funding agreement with Royalty Pharma
- Seres Therapeutics, a commercial-stage biotherapeutics company, in its signing an agreement with Société des Produits Nestlé S.A for the sale of its VOWST business to Nestlé Health Science
- Verona Pharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, in its US$650 million strategic financing with Oaktree and OMERS
- scPharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, in its US$125 million strategic financing with Perceptive Advisors
- Pionyr Immunotherapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, in its acquisition by Ikena Oncology, a targeted oncology company forging new territory in patient-directed cancer treatment
- CARGO Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company positioned to advance next generation, potentially curative cell therapies for cancer patients, in its US$281.3 million initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market