Pharma and Biotech Counsel in 2026: Deals Grow, Specialists Stay

General counsel who shortlist pharma and biotech law firms are buying from a market that looks unlike its peers. Sartori & Partners data show 3,276 deals for pharma and biotech clients in the 12 months to October 2026, almost the same count as technology and software at 3,279. The resemblance ends there. Capital markets work is 52.4% of the sector's deals, a smaller group of firms handles the volume, and the lawyers who carry a life sciences focus in their own practice are mostly patent lawyers and litigators who rarely change firms. For a general counsel, that splits one buying decision into two: the firms you hire for financings, and the specialists you hire, inside or outside, for everything the science creates.

Across all sectors, capital markets is 25.7% of deals, level with disputes and investigations at 25.0%. In pharma and biotech the split tilts hard: 1,718 capital markets deals against 315 disputes and investigations, which fall to 9.6% of the total. The capital markets share is 2.0 times the market's. Technology and software, on the same volume, spreads its work more evenly: M&A at 30.0%, capital markets at 23.3%, venture and growth at 15.3%. Of the two sectors set beside it here, banking is the closer match to the pharma mix, since capital markets is 48.8% of deals.

M&A is a smaller slice than many general counsel would expect: 17.5% for pharma and biotech, below the market's 19.3%. Venture and growth rounds, at 6.0%, run above the market's 3.8%, which fits a sector where many companies are still private and raising. For a company that comes to market often, the relationship that matters most on the panel is the equity capital markets team, and it will be used far more often than the M&A team. Staff and price that relationship first.

Pharma and biotech deals came from 1,359 distinct clients, against 1,713 in technology and software on almost the same deal count. Each pharma and biotech client generated 2.4 deals on average, against 1.9 in technology. Repeat issuers returning for follow-on offerings fit that pattern. Banking, a sector built on repeat issuance, runs at 2.6.

The firm table points the same way. The two most active firms for pharma and biotech, Cooley and Goodwin Procter, both sit in the 251-400 deal band. In technology, the most active firm sits one band lower, at 151-250, and so does the most active firm in banking, a sector with more deals than pharma.

A concentrated bench means the firms with the deepest sector deal experience also act for many of the other companies in your field. Expect conflict checks to bite on contested matters, and expect less room on fees than in a sector where the work is spread wider. For routine financings, the firms lower in this list, in the 61-100 band, have done enough sector work to be credible second options.

Deal credits and the lateral market describe two different groups of lawyers. In the deal record, capital markets lawyers account for 53.1% of pharma and biotech credits and intellectual property for 10.3%, close to the market's 11.1%. Among the 285 lawyers with a pharma and biotech focus who changed firms in the past 12 months, the order flips. Intellectual property is the practice of 49.5% of pharma-focused movers, litigation of 36.1%, and health care regulatory work of 19.6%, against 3.0% of lateral moves across the market; a lawyer can hold more than one. Capital markets does not appear among their five main practices.

Technology shows a milder form of the same split, with corporate lawyers at 41.5% of its sector-focused movers. In pharma and biotech, corporate lawyers are 21.4%. Product liability, at 9.8%, does not appear among the main practices of technology or banking movers at all.

The lawyers who know the science, the regulators and the litigation risk are a different hiring pool from the lawyers who run your offerings. When you hire in-house for sector depth, you are recruiting from the patent, litigation and regulatory benches, not from the deal teams named on most of your announced transactions.

Sartori & Partners data show that lawyers in Boston worked on 25.5% of pharma and biotech deals, against 10.1% of technology deals and 3.7% of banking deals. San Diego, at 13.5%, does not reach the top 10 cities in either comparison sector. New York leads at 45.9%, and Washington, close to the federal regulators, sits 0.5 points behind Boston at 25.0%. London's 11.1% is below its 15.0% share in technology. These shares measure where the work is done: one deal can count in several cities, so the shares add to more than the whole.

Lateral moves, a separate measure, point the same way. Boston is the top destination for lawyers with this focus, at 18.6% of moves, and the top origin, at 15.1%. For technology-focused movers, Boston is the origin of only 5.0%. Most movers stay put geographically: 18.4% changed city when they changed firm. A search that starts and ends in New York misses much of the specialist bench. Start in Boston, include Washington from the first list, and budget for the lawyer staying in their city rather than relocating.

Pharma and biotech deals rose 14.5% year on year in the settled 12-month windows, faster than the market's +10.6% and ahead of technology at +4.6%, which counts as flat. Lateral moves by lawyers with a pharma and biotech focus changed by +2.1%, also flat. Technology-focused moves rose 18.3% over the same period, so the tech bench is moving while the pharma bench holds still.

When pharma specialists do move, they move together more often. Group moves were 5.6% of moves by lawyers with this focus, against 2.4% in technology and 1.6% in banking. Partners made up 49.1% of these movers, and 67.4% of the moves involved firms of 1,000+ lawyers, above the 55.8% seen in technology.

More work on a bench that is not growing has two effects. Your outside teams carry more matters with the same people, and a specialist who leaves a firm tends to leave with colleagues. If you plan to bring one in-house, the pool is small and its members change jobs rarely, so a search will take longer than an equivalent hire for a deal lawyer.

On counsel, build the panel around two needs. For financings the work is concentrated, so test capacity and conflicts at the most active firms and keep one firm from the lower half of the top 10 warm as a second option. For patents, product liability and regulatory work, choose by the individual lawyer and the city, because that is where the specialist bench sits and it does not follow the deal tables.

On hiring, the wider in-house market sets the terms. Sartori & Partners data show 953 moves from law firms to companies across all sectors between May and October 2026, and 76.7% of them were associates. Intellectual property was 12.9% of those moves and health care 4.6%. Companies recruit far less often from Boston firms, at 3.0% of moves in-house, than from New York, at 16.1%. A pharma or biotech company prepared to recruit in Boston competes with fewer in-house buyers, in a city whose lawyers worked on 25.5% of the sector's deals.

In practice: keep the capital markets relationship external and concentrated, hire a senior patent or regulatory lawyer in-house from the Boston or Washington benches, and plan for a long approach to a lawyer who is not looking. For junior roles the market is deeper: associates are most of the lawyers who move from firms to companies.