Katja Hoos, Certified Specialist Lawyer in Medical Law, will be joining Schalast as a Partner on November 1, 2023. She will be responsible for launching and leading the firm’s new Healthcare & Life Sciences practice group.

Many healthcare businesses have previously relied on Schalast’s counsel, especially in the areas of employment law and M&A. The firm has also increasingly advised startups and investors in the biotech and health tech industries. The next step will be to combine and expand these interfaces.

“In the past, we’ve had to “hand off” our healthcare clients to pharmaceutical and medical legal specialists at some point. In the future, we intend to become a “one-stop shop” for these clients,” said Prof. Dr. Andreas Walter, Co-Managing Partner and Head of the Banking & Finance group. “Our clients particularly appreciate our pragmatic, agile, and tech-savvy approach in a highly regulated environment. This is also why we are now considered an industry leader in Fintech. Now, we intend to implement this approach in the Health Care and Life Science sectors. Katja Hoos possesses both the expertise and attitude to successfully carry out this strategy.”

According to Walter and Hoos, the use of biotechnology and genetic engineering, robotics, and the prudent use of data, for instance via AI, are all examples of technologies and developments that necessitate such advice.

The sector and the associated legal counsel are being shaped not just by technological developments of late but also by the societal shift toward a “New Health” age. “Disease prevention and health optimization are increasingly coming into focus,” Hoos said. “As a result, the demands on nutrition are rising, which at the same time should also be sustainable and climate-neutral (“green”), so businesses are developing increasingly optimized life and nutritional supplements in all regards.” Smartwatches and activity trackers are among the rapidly growing category of digital health tools.

Hoos’s expertise in both pharmaceutical and food law allows her to offer comprehensive counsel to major pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, medical care centers, private physicians, investors, and startups alike.

Katja Hoos attended Philipps University Marburg, where she graduated in law with an emphasis on medical and pharmaceutical law. She has extensive expertise in both hospital and physician liability and procedural law, as well as medical criminal law, gained via her most recent position at a medium-sized law firm.