MEENA DATTA is global co-leader of Sidley’s Healthcare practice, leads the Chicago Healthcare group, and is a member of the firm’s Global Life Sciences Leadership Council. She manages key strategic regulatory, transactional, litigation, and enforcement matters for life sciences, healthcare, and health technology companies throughout the world.
Offers a Broad Perspective. Meena is highly experienced in representing both Fortune 100 healthcare and life sciences companies as well as small biotech and medtech companies, and regularly advises Boards of Directors and c-suite personnel on sensitive regulatory matters. Her client base includes pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and their trade associations; distributors; large healthcare providers; clinical diagnostic laboratories; private equity firms and public companies focused on healthcare and life sciences investments; health tech companies; and innovators and disruptors. Meena has also been regularly counseling clients on COVID-19 related matters including crisis management; public health reporting; service and delivery; privacy; and risk mitigation.
Solves Complex Regulatory Problems. Meena helps clients solve critical business problems and formulate litigation strategy involving drug pricing; healthcare reform; fraud and abuse compliance, particularly in the design and execution of arrangements in compliance with the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute; state drug price transparency laws; federal healthcare program coverage and reimbursement issues; healthcare compliance programs; market access; HIPAA and HITECH implementation and compliance; and the Sunshine Act and similar state laws.
Litigation and Enforcement Proceedings. Meena aggressively defends clients on healthcare regulatory theories of liability – particularly drug pricing theories – in the context of enforcement initiated by the Department of Justice and Office of Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services. She also regularly leads Sidley teams that mount litigation challenges and pursue advocacy strategies in response to controversial regulatory developments, particularly drug pricing and reimbursement issues.
Counsels on Drug and Device Product Launches. Over the years, Meena has served as lead healthcare counsel in over 20 new drug and device product launches, where she has effectively partnered with in-house counsel and business teams on a wide variety of critical business issues including clinical trial design; distribution and market access models; value-based arrangements; patient assistance programs; early access and post-trial access programs; drug pricing; and customer interactions in the field. She also adds a significant breadth of knowledge across various settings of care in order to help her clients establish effective compliance programs and compliant patient assistance programs. A substantial portion of her work in this area is for novel drug therapy companies including rare disease and specialty pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Quarterbacks Global Regulatory and Compliance Due Diligences and Reviews. Meena also regularly leads regulatory due diligences for private equity and M&A transactions, compliance program assessments, as well as sensitive internal reviews on a global and programmatic scale, making key recommendations on diligence strategy and areas of potential risk. She is recognized by clients for providing pragmatic and actionable remediation advice.
Nationally Recognized. Meena is recognized as a top healthcare lawyer in the U.S. Most recently, Meena was recognized in Chambers 2020 in the area of Healthcare as having “impressive…regulatory expertise, and is frequently sought after to handle Medicaid reimbursement and price reporting matters” and was described by her clients as “an absolute expert in healthcare.” LMG Life Sciences also individually ranked Meena as a top regulatory lawyer in its 2020 rankings. She also was designated in The National Law Journal as a 2020 “Health Care / Life Sciences Trailblazer,” an annual special supplement that spotlights individuals working on a range of life sciences and health care issues, dubbing them “agents of change.” Also in 2020, Crain’s recognized Meena in its rankings for Chicago Business “Notable Women in Law.” She was recognized in the 2013 and 2016 editions of The Legal 500 U.S., which reported in its 2013 edition that Meena is a “pricing and fraud and abuse specialist.” Meena has been recommended in the area of Regulatory Law by Chambers 2015 and 2016, where she was praised as having “a great depth of subject matter expertise which spans various health law industries.” She was named as a “Rising Star” in Law360 (2018) and the Euromoney LMG 2015 Guide.
Meena received her B.A. from Brown University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Meena is regularly quoted by nationally recognized healthcare trade press and is a frequent speaker at key life sciences conferences. She has lectured for a Healthcare Management course at Loyola University’s Chicago Graduate School of Business and the Seton Hall Law School Healthcare Compliance Certificate Program. Meena is a proud member of the Board of Directors of the March of Dimes, Chicago Chapter.