Paul R. DeStefano is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the Firm’s Silicon Valley office. He is a member of the Firm’s Health Industry group, and the Firm’s Life Sciences & Medical Devices group.

Paul specializes in strategic planning related to the formation, finance and operations of start-up companies in the biotech industry. He has represented U.S. companies in raising over $3 billion through strategic alliances with larger foreign collaborators and regularly acts on behalf of Japanese, German, British, French and Swiss entities in their investments in U.S. equity and intellectual property. He further represents a number of foreign companies on their investments and intellectual property in the United States.

Paul has represented U.S. start-ups in raising over $250 million from the venture capital community and has been involved as counsel in over 50 IPOs. He has served as an advisor to a number of foreign investment banks and funds with respect to potential investments in the United States and regularly sits as an expert witness with respect to the valuation of intellectual property.

Paul is a former chief legal officer of Genentech, Inc., having served in that capacity for six years, two of them on the company’s management committee. He was also involved as counsel in raising over $300 million in “strategic alliances” and over $200 million in R&D limited partnerships.

Paul has been a lecturer at Santa Clara University School of Law, Stanford Law School, U.C. Berkeley School of Law, Dickinson School of Law and University of San Francisco School of Law, and a visiting professor of philosophy at Dickinson College. He recently published a chapter in the “Inside the Minds: Understanding Legal Trends in the Life Sciences Industry,” providing an insider's perspective on assisting clients with navigating domestic and international regulatory changes.

Paul has served as an advisor to the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and National Academy of Sciences on the commercialization of human gene therapy. He has also acted as an advisor to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences on vaccine liability issues. Paul was appointed to the California AIDS vaccine advisory panel by the governor of California and invited as a witness before the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic. He served as an advisor to the Scottish Development Agency and the Weizmann Institute of Israel on the commercialization of local-origin technologies, and as a consultant to the Conservation Foundation and United Nations Human Settlements Convention. Paul was selected as a Life Science Star by LMG Life Sciences (2012-2014).

Paul speaks and writes regularly on legal and technology issues, particularly those related to the biological sciences. He is admitted to practice in California and before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.