News

What an achievement!

Tessa Douma and Thomas Gysin from BGPartner, together with the team from Deutsche Bank, claimed the title of World Negotiation Champions at this year’s Negotiation Challenge by The Negotiation Center. 

In the prestigious Negotiation Challenge, Tessa and Thomas triumphed over a strong field of international participants. This Challenge gathers the world’s top negotiators to test their skills in realistic negotiation scenarios and develop innovative strategies. 

How did the Challenge work?
All registered teams went through four rounds, with the final round negotiations assessed by an international panel of experts.

What do participants gain from the Challenge?
Participants have the opportunity to refine and test their negotiation skills and benefit from feedback from seasoned negotiation experts.

What was the key to their success?
BGPartner’s attorneys demonstrated strategic thinking, clear focus, and impressive teamwork. They devised creative solutions that channeled even complex conflicts into constructive outcomes.

What does this victory signify?
This title is not only a personal success for Tessa Douma and Thomas Gysin but also underscores BGPartner’s expertise in negotiation and conflict resolution. As world negotiation champions, they will bring this expertise further to bear in their client work. 

Congratulations to Tessa and Thomas on this remarkable accomplishment!

Swiss biotech company Alentis Therapeutics AG successfully closed a $181.4 mio oversubscribed Series D financing round, supported by a syndicate of top-tier biotech investors. 

The funding round was led by OrbiMed with co-leads Novo Holdings and Jeito Capital. New investors Frazier Life Sciences, Longitude Capital, Catalio Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital and Avego Bioscience Capitalparticipated in the round. Significant backing was also received from existing investor RA Capital Management, along with support from Morningside Venture Investments, BB Pureos, Bpifrance through its InnoBio 2 fund.

The financing will support Alentis Therapeutics AG to develop a deep pipeline of CLDN1 targeted medicines for solid tumors.

BGPartner advised lead investors OrbiMed and Novo Holdings as well as the investor Catalio Capital on all Swiss legal matters and the negotiations of this Series D financing round. The team consisted of Oliver Gnehm (Partner), Victoria Marty (Senior Associate) and Tessa Douma (Associate).

More information about our legal and negotiation expertise can be found here.

BGPartner has been certified as a Great Place to Work by Great Place to Work® Switzerland. This certification is based on feedback from our team members, who particularly value the firm’s team spirit, flexible work arrangements, and open organizational culture. BGPartner invites you to explore the results of this certification in greater detail.

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“Crisis is a productive state. You just have to take away the aftertaste of catastrophe.”

This Max Frisch quote was the guiding idea of the exclusive roundtable event for executives and entrepreneurs on the topic of “crisis negotiations” on 19.09.2024 in Berne.

The topics discussed included:

• the current importance of crisis negotiations
• Challanges in crisis negotiations
• legal aspects of crisis negotiations
• Guidelines for handling crisis negotiations

The inspiring keynote speeches were given by Prof. Uta Herbst and Prof. Markus Voeth from the Negotiation Academy Potsdam in cooperation with the experts from BGPartner.

Swiss biotech company Asceneuron SA successfully closed a $100 mio oversubscribed Series C financing round. The financing round was led by Novo Holdings with new investment from EQT Life Sciences - LSP Dementia Fund, OrbiMed and SR One, alongside participation from existing investors M Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, GSK Equities Investments Limited and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc.

The funds will be used to progress lead asset ASN51, an oral small molecule OGA inhibitor, into Phase 2 clinical development for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

BGPartner advised lead investor Novo Holdings as well as the investors EQT Life Sciences - LSP Dementia Fund, OrbiMed and SR One, on all Swiss legal matters and the negotiations of this Series C financing round. The team consisted of Oliver Gnehm (Partner), Victoria Marty (Senior Associate) and Tessa Douma (Associate).

More information can be found here.

More information about our legal and negotiation expertise can be found here.