Dr. Christopher Hazuka is a partner in the Corporate Department of Latham & Watkins’ Silicon Valley office. His practice focuses on advising life sciences companies in structuring and negotiating transactions at every stage of their life cycle.

Dr. Hazuka advises established and emerging companies in the life sciences industry, including with respect to a range of transactions such as:

Structuring and negotiating complex collaborations
Licensing intellectual property and technology
Structuring relationships to assist in the development of drug candidates and innovative technologies
Manufacturing and quality agreements
Commercial agreements, including profit sharing and co-promotion agreements
University licenses
Clinical trial agreements
Due diligence and disclosure matters
Venture financings, public offerings and M&A transactions

Dr. Hazuka re-joined Latham from Orexigen Therapeutics, where he served most recently as acting general counsel. At the La Jolla, California-based company, Dr. Hazuka assisted with a myriad of challenging issues across the company’s full range of legal matters as the company pursued and obtained regulatory approval and executed on its plan to commercialize Orexigen's lead drug, a treatment for obesity. Such matters included SEC filings, stock offerings, corporate governance, strategic transactions, contract negotiations, FDA regulatory matters, compliance, employment, compensation and benefits, litigation and intellectual property. Of note was his role in Orexigen’s business development efforts to bring the product to market worldwide, especially working through the operational and legal aspects of Orexigen's US collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company.

Prior to joining Orexigen, Dr. Hazuka was an associate and partner-elect in Latham’s Silicon Valley office, where he focused on transactions in the life sciences industry. He was a clerk for the Hon. Jeremy Fogel of the United States District Court of Northern California before joining Latham. Prior to attending law school, Dr. Hazuka earned a PhD at Stanford University in the Neurosciences Program for his work performed in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Scheller on the molecular mechanisms of neurotransmission.