Richard Li

Partner, Head, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Greater China at Simmons & Simmons LLP

Speaker

Richard is the head of Healthcare and Life Sciences practice group in Greater China. He advises mature public companies, innovative startups and investors in life sciences sector, helping them navigate transactions across the entire product lifecycle and various therapeutic areas and modalities. With previous roles as a C-suite executive for a public biotech company and head of legal for a leading life sciences VC fund, he brings a holistic, pragmatic, and industry-centric approach to advising clients on a wide range of legal and business issues.

He is a skilled legal professional with over 15 years of experience advising life sciences companies and investors on a broad spectrum of complex transactions. These transactions include strategic collaborations and licensing, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, equity financing, co-promotions, manufacturing and distribution agreements, and other commonly seen commercial agreements in the life sciences sector. He also has extensive experience in advising clients on regulatory and policy matters through every step of the FDA-regulated product lifecycle, including pre-clinical testing, clinical trials, product registration, manufacturing, sales and promotion, labelling, pharmacovigilance, agency inspections and recalls, pricing and reimbursement, and enforcement actions.

Before joining Simmons, Richard served as the Chief Legal Officer for a NASDAQ-listed biotech company, where he led a legal team of 12 members overseeing the company’s global legal matters. In particular, he led the company through multiple transactions, advised on existing collaborations with strategic partners, and achieved a company-saving win in an ICC arbitration against another public biotech company. In that role, Richard earned multiple recognitions, including ALB China Top 15 GCs and CBLJ In-House Counsel Awards. Prior to that, Richard served as the head of legal of a leading life sciences venture capital firm and had over a decade of experience in private practice with two global law firms. He is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/Asia). Richard received his bachelor’s degree in law and master’s degree in international law from Sun Yat-sen University, and an LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School. He frequently writes and speaks on healthcare and life sciences related topics.