U.S. law firm Morrison Foerster has advised Japan’s Kyowa Kirin on its $477.6 million acquisition of British biopharmaceutical company Orchard Therapeutics, which was represented by Goodwin Procter. Slaughter & May was Orchard’s UK legal advisor.

Reuters quoted Kyowa as saying that the acquisition has already been cleared by the two firms' boards of directors but required approval by the British company's shareholders. The deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2024.

The Morrison Foerster team advising Kyowa Kirin on the deal was led by partner Gary Smith in Tokyo, with support from partners Masato Hayakawa in Tokyo and Joe Sulzbach in New York.

The Goodwin life sciences and M&A teams that represented Orchard on the transaction were led by partners Michael Bison, Jim Matarese, Andrew Goodman, and Tevia Pollard.