Deals Outside the Standard Types: Pharma Clients, IP Lawyers

A managing partner who wants to know what deals do pharma IP lawyers do will find a sharp answer in the deals that fit no standard type. Sartori & Partners data show 275 such deals in the 12 months to October 2026, 0.6% of all dated deals on record. These are matters the record could not file under M&A, capital markets, financing, disputes or any other named type. Pharma and biotech companies were the client on 50.2% of them, and intellectual property lawyers worked on 27.6%. The type is small and the claims it supports are modest, but its client and practice mix is a narrow, clear view of agreement work for life sciences companies, and of the lawyers a firm needs to win it.

Client concentration is the finding. Pharma and biotech companies were the client on 138 of the 275 deals outside the standard types, a share of 50.2%. Across all dated deals the same sector held 6.8%, so its share of this type is 7.4 times its share of the market. Seen from the sector's side the picture reverses: these deals are 4.2% of the 3,276 pharma and biotech deals on record, a thin slice of a busy sector.

The pattern fits how life sciences companies do business. A drug developer licenses a compound, signs a research collaboration or agrees a co-development and supply arrangement. None of these is a merger, an offering or a loan, and the value sits in patents, data and know-how rather than in shares or assets. Industry shares overlap and some deals carry no industry, so the 50.2% is a share of every deal in the type, not a split among sectors. For a firm, the point is practical: a life sciences client's non-standard work reaches the firm through its IP and contracts lawyers, not through the corporate partners who run its financings.

The practice mix breaks from every named deal type. Intellectual property lawyers worked on 27.6% of deals outside the standard types, against 11.1% of all dated deals, a gap of 16.5 points. Commercial contracts lawyers worked on 19.3%, against 0.2% of all deals, and technology, data and privacy lawyers on 7.3%, against 0.3%. M&A looks nothing like this: corporate and M&A lawyers sat on 90.2% of M&A deals and intellectual property lawyers on 0.3%. One deal can carry lawyers from several practices, so these shares overlap and are never added.

The same numbers read differently from each practice's side. For commercial contracts lawyers this type is a large part of their deal record: 51.5% of the 103 deals involving the practice fell here, though the counts are small. For intellectual property lawyers it is a small part, 1.4% of their 5,352 deals, because 95.3% of the practice's deal record is disputes and investigations, many of them matters taken from public court and trademark-office records. The IP lawyer on these deals is a transactional specialist inside a practice whose recorded volume is mostly contentious. A firm that wants this work needs IP partners who negotiate agreements, plus contracts lawyers who know research, supply and license terms; a patent litigator alone does not cover it.

The firm list for this type looks unlike the market's. Cooley sits alone in the 21-40 band of deals advised over 12 months, followed by Ropes & Gray, Goodwin Procter, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Sidley Austin and Loeb & Loeb, all in the 11-20 band. Several of the first names are firms widely known for life sciences and emerging-company clients, which matches the client mix above.

Checked name by name against the top 10 for all dated deals, three firms appear on both lists: Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins and Jones Day. Latham & Watkins heads the market list and ranks 7th on this type. The first four firms on this type's list are not in the market's top 10 at all. In the Sartori & Partners deal record, then, the firms that set the pace on non-standard pharma-heavy work are not the firms that set it on deal volume overall. For a firm building this bench, the rivals for talent are the life sciences specialists, and their transactional IP and contracts lawyers are the natural lateral pool.

This is not a growing corner of the market. The count of deals outside the standard types held flat (-4.1%), at 260 in the 12 months to September 2026 against 271 a year earlier. All dated deals rose 10.6% over the same windows, from 43,590 to 48,216, and M&A rose 8.9%. On counts this small a swing of a few deals moves the percentage, which is why the reading is flat rather than a decline. The work is spread wide: the 275 deals of the latest 12 months involved 193 distinct clients.

Deal values are thin as well. Only 18.5% of these deals disclosed a value, with a median of $1,300 million; M&A deals disclosed a value 10.3% of the time, with a median of $1,200 million. In life sciences, headline values on collaboration and licensing agreements often include future milestone payments, so a median of this kind describes announced terms, not cash at signing. The consequence for a firm is plain: with a steady flow and many separate clients, a new team wins this work by taking mandates from incumbent advisers, not by waiting for a bigger pool.

The partner market behind this work did not move either. Intellectual property partner hiring held flat (+8.0%), with 352 lateral partners in the 12 months to September 2026 against 326 a year earlier. In commercial contracts the counts are small: partner hiring held flat (+2.6%), at 39 against 38. Steady deal flow and steady partner supply mean a firm adding this capability competes for a fixed group of people chasing a fixed amount of work.

Where IP laterals land points to the life sciences hubs. Sartori & Partners data show San Francisco took 9.4% of IP lateral moves in 12 months, an index of 292 against the whole lateral market, and Boston took 6.1%, an index of 235. Contracts talent hides in other groups: 40.7% of commercial contracts lateral moves were also recorded under corporate and M&A, and 16.9% under intellectual property. Recruit the IP side in the Bay Area and Boston, and look for contracts lawyers inside corporate teams as well as in dedicated contracts groups.

First, follow the client. If your firm wants pharma and biotech work beyond financings and M&A, the 50.2% sector share says where non-standard deals come from, and the 27.6% and 19.3% practice shares say who must be in the room. Second, hire for agreements, not only for court: with 95.3% of IP deal records in disputes, a CV full of litigated matters says little about license and collaboration work. Ask candidates for the agreements they negotiated, by client sector.

Third, benchmark against the right rivals. The firms list for this type is headed by life sciences specialists, and a lateral pitch built on overall deal rank will not persuade a partner who already works for them. Fourth, plan for a slow build: the count of these deals held flat (-4.1%) and partner hiring in both practices was steady, so a new team grows by winning clients from incumbent advisers. In the Sartori & Partners deal record the type is small, so judge any single year with care and weigh the client and practice mix more than the count.