The Palo Alto office of global law firm K&L Gates LLP welcomes Linda Zhou as a partner in the emerging growth and venture capital practice. Zhou joins K&L Gates from Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP.

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Dickstein Shapiro LLP is pleased to announce that Atulya R. Agarwal has joined the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice as partner, effective April 1, in its Palo Alto, California office. He joins the firm from Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he was a senior vice president and served as Elan’s chief intellectual property officer. Dr. Agarwal has more than two decades of life-sciences experience, including 10-plus years as in-house IP counsel to biopharmaceutical companies. His arrival strengthens the firm’s biotechnology patent prosecution, strategy, and licensing practices in Palo Alto, and his practice will leverage his extensive industry and in-house experience to assist companies in developing IP strategies to maximize the value of their portfolios by protecting assets and products though patent counseling, prosecution, due diligence, transactions, and litigation.

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Cooley LLP announced today that it advised Otsuka in its $825 million collaboration agreement with Lundbeck to further the development and commercialization of a developmental drug, Lu AE58054, for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Perkins Coie is pleased to announce that Lowell Ness has joined the firm’s Palo Alto office as a Partner in the firm’s Emerging Companies practice. Ness was most recently a Partner in the Silicon Valley office of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

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Davis Polk advised Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal Media, LLC in connection with the cross-guarantee by Comcast and certain of its cable holding companies of NBCUniversal’s $11 billion of public debt securities and by NBCUniversal of Comcast’s and the cable guarantors’ $30 billion of public debt securities and Comcast’s $6.25 billion credit facility. Following Comcast’s announcement that it would acquire General Electric Company’s 49% stake in NBCUniversal and that it would include NBCUniversal in the cross-guarantee structure, Standard & Poor’s upgraded all of Comcast’s and NBCUniversal’s public debt securities from BBB+ to A- and Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Comcast’s public debt securities from Baa1 to A3 and NBCUniversal’s public debt securities from Baa2 to A3.

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Shearman & Sterling is advising TIBCO Software Inc. in its acquisition of Maporama Solutions SAS, a French company engaged in providing geocentric mapping solutions and services.

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Davis Polk Advises Citigroup in Connection with Amending and Restating Eastman Kodak Company’s Debtor-In-Possession Revolving Credit Facility.

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Davis Polk advised Comcast Corporation, NBCUniversal Media, LLC and NBCUniversal Enterprise, Inc. in connection with the issuance and sale of $4 billion aggregate principal amount of senior notes and $725 million aggregate liquidation preference of Series A cumulative preferred stock of NBCUniversal Enterprise, Inc. The notes are guaranteed by Comcast and certain of its cable subsidiaries that guarantee Comcast’s publicly traded debt securities. The notes and the preferred stock were issued in connection with Comcast’s acquisition on March 19, 2013, of the 49% common equity interest in NBCUniversal, LLC held by General Electric Company (GE). Sales of the notes and preferred stock were made in separate private placements pursuant to Rule 144A.

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Davis Polk advised Westar Energy, Inc. in connection with its SEC-registered offering of $250 million in aggregate principal amount of 4.10% first-mortgage bonds due 2043. The joint book-running managers were BNY Mellon Capital Markets, LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated.

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Shearman & Sterling represented Goldcorp Inc. in connection with a registered shelf takedown of $500 million aggregate principal amount of 2.125% Notes due 2018 and $1.0 billion aggregate principal amount of 3.700% Notes due 2023.

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