Remembering Alan Mendelson, mentor to biotech lawyers, CEOs

Revered lawyer made his mark at Amgen, Cooley, Latham & Watkins and beyond

Alan Mendelson, fiercely loyal biopharma counsel and mentor to biotech lawyers, CEOs and VCs, passed away on Friday, Oct. 8. He was 73.

Upon his graduation from Harvard Law School, Mendelson joined Cooley’s Bay Area practice, working on tech and life sciences transactions. It was at the firm that he became counsel for Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) from the company’s inception, working with George Rathmann, founding CEO and an industry legend in his own right.

At Amgen, Mendelson helped the burgeoning bellwether grow during its first decade via deals, including its venture raises, IPO, JV with Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd. and co-promotion partnership with Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY).

Mendelson left Cooley to become a founding member of Latham & Watkins’ Bay Area practice, where he spent two decades of his career. He served as a vice chair of the firm’s healthcare and life sciences practice in 2000-08 before chairing the practice during 2010-20. He also chaired of Latham & Watkins’ emerging companies practice from 2001 to 2013; according to the firm, it was in this role that he dramatically increased Latham’s stature in Silicon Valley. Mendelson retired from the firm in 2020.

His lasting mark on life sciences, beginning from its earliest days, was perhaps most importantly felt in the role he played as mentor to young lawyers and CEOs, along with his fierce dedication to his clients, particularly among smaller biotechs.

“He gave the impression that he would fall on a grenade for the client,” Cooley Senior Counsel Barclay Kamb told BioCentury. “It was one of those things where he had this absolute, overt dedication to representing the client’s interests over essentially anything else.”

Kleiner Perkins’ Brook Byers told BioCentury Mendelson’s legacy is in the vast numbers of people who’ve benefited from his mentorship.

“Over his career, he has mentored and coached by example — either directly by reporting relationships or indirectly on all the boards he was on or all the companies he advised — hundreds of people, hundreds of lawyers, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. Hundreds,” said Byers.

Mendelson’s guidance helped Cooley’s Laura Berezin become one of the first life sciences focused securities lawyers.

“Alan made my career. He was responsible for me becoming a biotech-focused lawyer. He was my mentor and my friend. Everything I do well as a lawyer is because of him,” Berezin told BioCentury. “He was a giant in the industry, and a giant in my life.”

Barbara Kosacz, who began her career working with Mendelson at Cooley and would go on to lead the firm’s international sciences practice, also attributes her success to her mentor.

“He taught me — it was a bit of a brutal education sometimes — what it really meant to serve clients,” Kosacz told BioCentury. “I think the thing that really distinguished him was he was so intensely, emotionally involved with his clients. He would yell at the bankers if he didn’t think his clients were getting treated fairly. He would get upset when they had challenging clinical data. He really lived the ups and downs of his clients in a way that I didn’t see anybody else doing. His clients loved him as a result.”

He played a similar role to the CEOs who were his clients.

“He’s everybody’s mentor,” Paul Hastings, CEO of Nkarta Inc. (NASDAQ:NKTX), told BioCentury. “He helped some of the giants, like Brook Byers, who says he learned a lot from Alan. That’s who Alan Mendelson is.”

Hastings added: “One of gems, one of the mensches of biotech.”

Kosacz recalled what made him stand out from most lawyers she knew.

“He knew plenty about the law, but he had really transcended that kind of technical advice role, and really was that kind of outside consigliere who was really retained for his judgment,” said Kosacz, who is now COO and general counsel at Kronos Bio Inc. (NASDAQ:KRON). “I learned a lot about how to be brave, and an adviser, from him. And fierce.”

Mendelson was not above being the subject of good-natured ribbing from his team, according to Kosacz.

“I once bought him a shirt that said, ‘I yell because I care,’ which he really liked.”

CEO whisperer

His clients almost exclusively saw another side of him.

“His style and persona was that of a pleasant, calm countenance, a soft voice,” said Byers. “Always helpful, always trying to move the thoughts forward and give great advice. He was a true counselor, kind of a consigliere type. It was never about Alan, it was always about the mission.”

For Steve James, CEO of Pionyr Immunotherapeutics Inc., Mendelson called to mind a different authority figure.

“In my case, he was more like the ‘Godfather’ because of his experience and my newness at being a CEO,” James said, recalling his first post at the head of the C-suite. “I could always count on Alan to bring the gravitas or to bring the hammer, if necessary, to keep potential pharmaceutical companies or even board members in line.”

What also impressed James and Kosacz was his dedication to smaller biotechs.

“Alan was equally respected and at ease whether it be a large company, a public biotech company, or what have you, or a 10-person start-up.” James told BioCentury. “You got the same attention, and you got the same care, whether you were a bigger public company or a tiny start-up.”

Said Kosacz: “To me, it was all the smaller companies who he grew to larger companies at a time when the industry was just getting traction, and they needed someone in their corner. He was that guy.”

He was someone, she said, that sought to “level the playing field”, regardless of “whether it was pharma on the other side or a bulge bracket bank.” She added: He was going to let them know, “you can’t take advantage of my people.”

Hastings recalls how Mendelson, who was counsel and a board member at many of his companies, was always there for him. 

“Alan was there through some of the darkest moments that I’ve had,” Hastings said. “If I was ever disappointed or sad or unhappy with a board member, and I called Alan, he would come to my house and just sit and talk about it. It didn’t matter when or where, he would be there.”

Mendelson would seek out companies that didn’t know they needed his help, or that they could seek it.

“When we launched BioCentury in 1993, Alan called up out of the blue and said, ‘I need to meet you guys.’ He opened doors around the industry, including on Wall Street, that were pivotal to our small start-up,” said BioCentury co-founder, President and CEO David Flores.

Upon Mendelson’s retirement, James wrote him a long letter thanking him for having “my back for 20 years.” According to James, Mendelson wrote back a single line: “Steve — you find a foxhole, and I’ll jump into it with you.”

Untiring leadership

Mendelson was “tireless,” Byers said, totting up his many leadership roles outside of his positions at law firms.

Until his untimely passing last week, he was on the board of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), the UC Berkeley Foundation, the UC Berkeley Department of Chemistry, and the UC Innovation Council, where he at one time advised then UC President Janet Napolitano on technology and entrepreneurship initiatives for the UC system.

Previous leadership posts included the boards of BayBio, BIO, and the Scripps Research Institute. He was president of the National Kidney Foundation of Northern California and on the Board of Overseers Visiting Committee of Harvard Law School.

Beyond such roles, Hastings recalled how Mendelson would “fight for people”: women in the workplace, the underprivileged and those in underrepresented communities. 

Not surprisingly, Mendelson was competitive; he was also a devoted fan of Bay Area sports teams. 

At an event at a recent J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Kamb bumped into Mendelson and asked if he had retired. Mendelson replied, “Nope, going full steam.” Asked why he is still working, Mendelson said, “You know, it’s how you keep score.”

Mendelson passed away doing one of the things he loved most: watching his San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0 at Oracle Park in game one of the National League Division Series.

Mendelson is survived by his wife, Agnès; sons, Jonathan and David; and four grandchildren, Ella, Ethan, Laina and Trevor.

Mendelson’s family will pay their respects at a private service in San Francisco. A larger memorial is being organized.