Contract drafting, review and negotiation services grounded in more than 20 years of proven experience helping organizations and executives articulate and achieve their business goals while interacting effectively with key stakeholders.
About Nancy
Nancy brings over 20 years of proven experience to client projects including contract drafting, review, negotiation and work with institutional review boards. With a unique legal/business background, a talent for converting complex concepts to simple, understandable terms, and a keen ability to see the forest for the trees—she is a strong asset to any organization in need of her expertise.
While Nancy has spent a good part of her career creating, negotiating and reviewing a wide variety of commercial contracts, she has developed particular expertise in, and passion for the healthcare space.
Nancy has worked closely with various healthcare constituents: the cancer centers of leading U.S. academic institutions, a large number of hospital systems as well as pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics companies. She is also a long-standing voting member of the institutional review boards of two large hospital systems, ensuring patients’ rights and welfare are safeguarded during clinical trials.
Among other experience, Nancy has worked in marketing and strategy, building partnerships and helping to establish and expand organizations’ international footprints. She has served as internal counsel and managed external counsel from preeminent law firms with leading healthcare practices. Nancy holds a law degree from the University of Ottawa and an MBA from Western University.
Keys to her success include strong diplomacy skills, reverence for transparency and a wicked sense of humor. When she’s not buried in a contract, reviewing research protocols and informed consent forms, Nancy can be found hiking with her dog Evy, trying out new recipes or sweating in a hot yoga class.
Contract Services and Solutions
Nancy has broad and deep experience with critical contracting needs. Key examples of Nancy’s work include the following:
The creation/review/negotiation of:
Non-disclosure agreements
Letters of intent/memorandums of understanding
Term sheets
Master services agreements – including a wide array of vendor and technology agreements
Scopes of work and budgets
Clinical trial agreements – investigator-initiated and industry sponsored agreements
Data use agreements
Material transfer agreements
Employment/consulting agreements; separation agreements
Board and advisory agreements
Contract research organization (CRO) agreements
The creation/review of:
Employee handbooks
Contract negotiation playbooks
Contract templates
Management of external counsel
Institutional Review Board work including:
Review of clinical trial protocols, application forms, informed consent forms and HIPAA authorizations in preparation for full board reviews
Exempt/expedited reviews and drafting of IRB determination letters
Clients and Testimonials
Clients that span a variety of organizations — big and small, public and private
Select Client List
Children’s Hospital Colorado
CommonSpirit Health
HelloMD
Red House Communications
San Francisco SPCA
Tenaya Therapeutics
University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus
Testimonials
“I cannot recommend Nancy enough. I worked with Nancy on the I-SPY 2 clinical trials. Nancy is incredibly skilled at handling contracts from pharma, biotech and universities. She has a truly translational ability across fields. Nancy is able to take difficult concepts and repurpose them in a way that a lay person can easily understand. Nancy also remains calm and professional in difficult situations. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Nancy and would welcome the opportunity to do so again.”
– Ruby Singhrao, Clinical Development Lead, Oncology, Roche
“I had the privilege of working with Nancy as she assisted our team with Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviews. Nancy displayed an exemplary understanding of research ethics, consistently ensuring that all research activities adhered to the highest standards. Her attention to detail and ability to provide constructive feedback to researchers made the review process efficient and thorough. Nancy's spirit and dedication were evident, as she often went above and beyond to ensure all projects met regulatory and ethical requirements. I can confidently recommend Nancy for any role requiring oversight, understanding of research protocols, and an unwavering commitment to ethical standards. Her expertise and dedication would be a valuable asset to any team.”
– Russell Stolp, System Manager, CommonSpirit Health Research Institute IRB
“Nancy worked with us on a special project that involved numerous stakeholders, teams and organizations. She brought a thoughtful, insightful and helpful perspective to a complex set of issues. Her work enabled us to assess and highlight needs, bring various teams together, and hone in on the important process improvements needed in order to advance our strategic plans. In addition, she was a delightful member of our team during this time. I'm extremely grateful for her work and support!”
– Megan Zatz, VP, Deputy General Counsel at Children’s Hospital Colorado
“Nancy and I both worked on the I-SPY2 breast cancer trial under the umbrella of Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative. Nancy was the Legal Affairs director for QLHC while I directed the (UCSF) lab that handled the specimens and biomarker work for the trial. Our paths intersected over projects that required contract with collaborators who were performing services for the biomarker group or collaborating with us. This was a complicated area because of the IP rules of the I-SPY Trial consortium, which often requires negotiation with the collaborator institutes. In other instances the contracting involved fees for services, sometimes involving three parties.
The I-SPY 2 Trial is complicated in its organization, funding, and IP. It takes new members of the team some time to appreciate and understand that complexities. Nancy fully embraced the challenge and worked extremely diligently to understand the history of the organization and the perspectives of the parties involved. She paid close attention to detail and never failed to reach out to question a contract line that might be ambiguous, making sure we had created a document that reflected our intentions and covered the appropriate aspects of the arrangements. I had full confidence that we were in good hands with Nancy. Nancy was a pleasure to work with, she was an asset to the team and an integral part of a major successful biomarker project - we could not have done it without her.”
– Lamorna Brown Swigart, Adjunct Professor, University of California, San Francisco
"With both a unique breadth and depth of experience and as a quick study of whatever complex challenge is at hand in our business, Nancy has been one of our key go-to consultants. She is extremely adept at navigating and guiding us through strategic, legal and employment matters both in Canada and the U.S. Her positive, 'can-do' attitude is contagious and she is a real joy to work with.”
– Nathan Clark, Head of Finance, HelloMD (telehealth platform)
“I've had the privilege of working with Nancy on an institutional review board for many years. She is consistently thorough in her reviews, insightful in her understanding of what research participants need, and collaborative in working with IRB staff, chairpersons, study teams, and scientific reviewers. She's also been important in improving processes and workflows for our IRB on several levels. I enthusiastically endorse her work!”
– Dr. Brian Jackson, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Colorado | Anschutz Medical Campus; former Chair, COMIRB (Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board)
"Nancy understands the unique, often complex needs of my business, asks insightful questions to achieve concise and clear contract language, and effectively negotiates terms with my clients that balance everyone's needs. Her careful and thoughtful approach, coupled with her rare intellect and broad business and legal experience, leave me to focus on my clients' work while she manages the contracting process."
– Denise Powell, Principal, Red House Communications
“I had the pleasure of working closely with Nancy at the non-profit Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative, bringing on new pharma partners and academic institutions into the I-SPY 2 clinical trial effort in breast cancer. She has been unlike any other legal/contracts colleague I've ever worked with: Nancy is heavily invested in working with her colleagues to make sure there is clarity on all sides of a negotiations, bringing all stake holders to the table to ensure a win/win for all sides in the conclusion of those negotiations. I've appreciated her attention to the legal AND financial details, and her kind efforts to teach the scientists about the risks of miscommunication and the pitfalls of underestimating the power of persuasion. In addition, Nancy really cared greatly about QLHC's mission--assessing and identifying safer and more efficacious treatments for early stage high risk breast cancer patients. She had never lost track of the most important stakeholders in the I-SPY 2 network, the patients and their dedicated care providers, to whom time is of the essence. I am retired now, but would gladly work with her again if given the opportunity.”
– Julie Sudduth-Klinger, Drug Development Professional
“Nancy worked with us on a project involving multiple stakeholders. She was a thoughtful partner who always displayed a very calm and professional demeanor. It was a pleasure working with Nancy and she was able to add valuable insights to complex processes.”
– Jenae Neiman, Vice President, Research Operations, Children’s Hospital Colorado