Deborah Gersh is the co-chair of Ropes & Gray’s nationally recognized health care practice and the co-leader of the firm’s Health Care and Life Sciences Industry Group. Deborah also actively participates in the data, privacy & cybersecurity group. She has over thirty years of experience advising health care industry clients and investors on mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures, and the complex regulatory regimes implicated by such transactions. Currently, Deborah is also advising health care clients on issues related to COVID-19, such as operational preparedness and business continuity planning. Ropes & Gray was the 2020 firm award winner of the Financial Times Enabling Businesses Response to Covid-19.

In addition, Deborah has counseled many clients through the implementation of value-based care (“VBC”) initiatives, and is recognized as a leading voice on structuring innovative arrangements, including novel business models and structures designed to foster biotechnology companies’ expansion beyond their traditional market into the provider space. She also publishes and presents extensively on VBC.

As a leading practitioner also on privacy, data security and cyber-security issues, Deborah advises clients on an array of data privacy, protection and security matters under HIPAA, state privacy and security laws, and emerging guidance arising from the coronavirus pandemic. She has represented clients involved in security incidents involving protected health and other sensitive personal information, including representing clients in matters involving the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, as well as HIPAA security audits and qui tam actions initiated by state and federal government authorities.