Heather Centauro

Counsel | She/Her/Hers

Overview

Heather Centauro is a skilled transactional attorney with over 15 years of experience drafting, negotiating, and counseling clients on a wide range of agreements for life sciences research and development.

Heather’s deep industry and academic experience, including an in-house role at a major health care and research institution, enables her to bring a sophisticated and pragmatic perspective to advising clients on transactions supporting a broad range of pre-clinical and clinical research and development activities, including services, consulting, SaaS, data privacy, and clinical trial site agreements. She also assists clients with manufacturing, packaging, labeling, and distribution agreements for clinical trial materials.

Career & Education

    • Agreement Associate, Partners Clinical Research Office, Partners HealthCare
      • Supported academic research across the Partners hospitals, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, McLean, Newton Wellesley Hospital, and Spaulding Rehabilitation Center.
      • Drafted and negotiated clinical research agreements for a wide range of studies.
    • Imaging Research Associate, Perceptive Informatics
      • Engaged in clinical research on various clinical trials at an imaging contract research organization.
    • Research Associate, University of Massachusetts Medical School
      • Researched cancer biology in an academic research laboratory.
    • Agreement Associate, Partners Clinical Research Office, Partners HealthCare
      • Supported academic research across the Partners hospitals, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, McLean, Newton Wellesley Hospital, and Spaulding Rehabilitation Center.
      • Drafted and negotiated clinical research agreements for a wide range of studies.
    • Imaging Research Associate, Perceptive Informatics
      • Engaged in clinical research on various clinical trials at an imaging contract research organization.
    • Research Associate, University of Massachusetts Medical School
      • Researched cancer biology in an academic research laboratory.
    • Providence College, B.S., cum laude, Biochemistry
    • Suffolk University Law School, J.D.
    • Providence College, B.S., cum laude, Biochemistry
    • Suffolk University Law School, J.D.
    • Massachusetts
    • Massachusetts

Representative Matters

  • Supported multiple clients on various large, international clinical trials by supervising development of custom clinical trial agreement templates, leading project management, advising on and resolving complex legal issues, including data privacy, and coordinating with local counsel outside the U.S. as needed. Recent clinical trials include:
    • A Phase 2 clinical trial for a heart failure treatment product, involving approximately 600 subjects across 175 sites located in North America, Europe, and Asia;
    • Two Phase 2 clinical trials for products for rare diseases involving 40 sites in the United States;
    • Two Phase 2 clinical trials for a product for sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia across 60 sites in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia; and
    • Two Phase 1 clinical trials for an oncology drug across 90 sites in North America, Europe, and Asia.
  • Drafted and negotiated various multi-million-dollar master services agreements with global contract research organizations for large, multinational clinical studies of therapeutic products.
  • Drafted and negotiated manufacturing and GMP services agreements for supply of small molecule and gene therapy products for various venture backed therapeutic companies.