Pharma & Biotech Capital Markets Counsel: Smaller Deals, Other Leaders

A finance chief or general counsel at a drug developer who is lining up biotech capital markets lawyers for an offering should start with deal size. Sartori & Partners data show that the median disclosed value of a pharma and biotech deal in the 12 months to October 2026 was $250 million. Across every capital markets deal on record, in every client sector, the median was $563.2 million, 2.3 times the sector figure. The firms the sector hires most often are also not the two firms at the head of the capital markets practice as a whole. Both facts shape whom you hire, what you pay for, and how much partner time your offering will get.

Pharma and biotech deals had a median disclosed value of $250 million in the 12 months to October 2026. Capital markets deals across all client sectors had a median of $563.2 million, so the sector's typical ticket is 44.4% of the practice's. Banks and financial institutions, the other large issuer group on the capital markets bench, sit higher at $660 million. The sector is not small by count: it logged 3,276 deals in 12 months, and capital markets lawyers worked on 1,740 of them. Pharma and biotech companies were the client sector on 13.7% of the capital markets practice's 12,684 deals. Many deals, each of modest size: that is the profile a life sciences issuer brings to a capital markets team.

Half of the capital markets practice's disclosed deals carried values above $563.2 million, so a capital markets firm's record is built largely on deals bigger than the sector's typical one. Ask each pitching firm for the offerings it ran near your size in the past 12 months, not its largest ones, and ask how its fee proposal and its staffing reflect a deal of that size.

The two figures need their limits stated. The sector median covers every pharma and biotech deal with a disclosed value, not only offerings. Capital markets lawyers worked on 53.1% of the sector's deals, corporate and M&A lawyers on 23.4% and intellectual property lawyers on 10.3%. One deal can involve lawyers from several practices, so those shares overlap and are never added. By deal type, 52.4% of the sector's deals were capital markets transactions, 17.5% were M&A and 9.6% were disputes and investigations.

The values also rest on a minority of deals. Only 25.6% of pharma and biotech deals disclosed a value, against 29.5% of capital markets deals, so each median describes the deals whose terms were made public. No median is published for pharma capital markets deals alone, so the 2.3 times gap sets the sector's whole deal mix against the practice's whole client mix. What the figures do show is a contrast in kind: a sector where capital markets lawyers appear on 53.1% of deals posts a median of 44.4% of the practice's. For a finance chief, that means comparing like with like: ask firms for the median size of the life sciences offerings they ran last year and set it against your own.

The firm list below covers all pharma and biotech deals, not only capital markets work: no firm list exists for the sector's capital markets deals alone. In the Sartori & Partners deal record, Cooley and Goodwin Procter sit together in the top band, with 251-400 deals advised each over 12 months. The capital markets practice across all sectors is headed by Davis Polk & Wardwell and Latham & Watkins, both in the 701-1200 band. Those two firms are active in the sector too, but further down its list: Latham & Watkins ranks 3rd and Davis Polk & Wardwell ranks 6th.

Checked name by name, the two lists overlap only in part. Cooley ranks 9th on capital markets deals across all sectors, while Goodwin Procter is not in that top 10. Sidley Austin ranks 9th for the sector and 10th for the practice. That leaves four firms on both lists: Cooley, Latham & Watkins, Davis Polk & Wardwell and Sidley Austin. The other six sector firms, among them Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Ropes & Gray and Covington & Burling, are absent from the capital markets top 10, which carries A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance and Linklaters instead, none of them in the sector's top 10.

The sector's work also runs through different offices. 25.5% of the sector's deals were handled with lawyers in Boston and 13.5% with lawyers in San Diego; for bank deals, Boston's figure is 3.7%. A shortlist drawn only from the capital markets list would miss Goodwin Procter, a firm that shares the sector's top band. Test the sector firms on capital markets depth and the large capital markets firms on sector depth: ask each for the life sciences offerings its partners ran in the past 12 months and the office that would staff yours.

Year on year, pharma and biotech deals rose 14.5%, from 2,880 in the earlier settled 12-month window to 3,298 in the window ending September 2026. Capital markets deals for all client sectors rose 10.0% over the same windows, from 11,838 to 13,024. The whole deal record rose 10.6%.

The two rates measure different things. The sector count includes every pharma and biotech matter, M&A, disputes and investigations, and venture and growth among them, while the practice count covers capital markets work for every client sector; neither isolates pharma offerings. Read together, Sartori & Partners figures show that pharma and biotech work grew 14.5% while the capital markets bench's own workload grew 10.0%, so demand from the sector is growing faster than the bench's work as a whole. If you plan to come to market in a busy window, engage counsel before the underwriters are mandated, and ask the firm which other sector issuers its team is carrying that quarter.

Size your counsel to your deal. A median of $250 million in the sector, against $563.2 million across capital markets, means the practice's typical deal is 2.3 times the sector's: ask for comparable deals, not headline ones. Build the shortlist from the sector list first. Cooley and Goodwin Procter share its top band, and only Cooley also sits in the capital markets top 10, at 9th. Add one of the practice's busiest firms, Davis Polk & Wardwell or Latham & Watkins, if you want a firm whose capital markets book is larger than its life sciences book. Ask for the full record. With only 25.6% of sector deals disclosing a value, much of a firm's experience is unpriced in public: request its undisclosed deals under confidentiality. Book early. Sector deals rose 14.5% against 10.0% for the practice, so partner calendars fill before the busy issuance windows open.