Faith L. Charles

Faith, a corporate transactions and securities partner, leads the firm’s Life Sciences practice, and is one of few women who serve as trusted advisors and outside counsel to dozens of public and emerging life sciences companies, providing valuable insights into capital markets, corporate governance and strategic collaborations. With over 30 years of industry experience, Faith has cultivated a deep understanding of how to launch and build a successful life sciences business. She also counsels companies in the health care information technology, energy, retail and consumer product sectors.

Faith skillfully leads, manages and negotiates a wide range of complex and transformative private and public financing transactions, acquisitions and dispositions, and strategic collaborations, nationally and internationally. She has completed more than 250 securities offerings, with gross proceeds totaling billions of dollars.

As a member of several private and public life sciences companies’ boards, Faith provides insightful, strategic leadership on corporate governance matters, complex disclosure issues, insider trading issues, compliance with federal and state securities laws, and stock exchange listings and compliance.

Faith uses a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach to resolve clients’ issues and provides guidance on integrating advice from other legal experts, such as patent prosecutors, regulatory advisors, litigators, employment lawyers and tax advisors, aligning recommendations with the clients’ corporate strategies and directions. Faith is passionate about providing great client service, which reward both her and her clients with strong, long-lasting relationships.

Faith founded the Women in Bio Metro New York chapter and was its chair for five years. She serves on the board of Women in Bio’s national organization and is a graduate of its inaugural Boardroom Ready program, an executive development course taught by George Washington University’s Executive Education School. Faith also serves on the Life Sciences Advisory Council for Springboard Enterprises. She has been recognized as a Life Sciences Star by Euromoney’s LMG Life Sciences since 2013, and she has been named a BTI Client Service All-Star.

Capital Markets

With extensive knowledge of federal and state securities law filings and compliance, and public and private capital markets transactions, Faith provides clients with solid legal footing required for transactions such as public offerings, follow-on offerings, confidentially marked offerings, registered direct offerings, reverse mergers, spin-off transactions, at-the-market offerings and private placements of equity and debt securities. She also provides guidance on stock exchange listings, de-listings and compliance. Her client base range from Fortune 500 to fledgling companies, as well as banks, underwriters, placement agents, venture capitalists and investors.

Corporate Governance

Comprehensive experience, including her experience serving as a board member, enables Faith to provide insightful leadership on topics such as corporate governance matters, complex disclosure issues, insider trading issues and compliance with federal and state securities laws and stock exchange listings and compliance. For her clients, which include companies, boards of directors and special committees, Faith devises strategies which assess and mitigate risks, develops governance and other types of compliance policies, and assists with the director onboarding process.

Strategic Collaborations

Faith negotiates and counsels on strategic collaborations and joint ventures in the United States and internationally, primarily for life sciences clients. Her work includes completing a significant number of exclusive licensing agreements on behalf of clients with companies around the world, including China, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan and Latin America, among others. She also advises and negotiates commercial agreements, such as technology license agreements, manufacturing and supply agreements, distribution agreements and service agreements.