Principal

Wainwright Fishburn is a founding partner of Cooley’s San Diego office and a prominent venture capital attorney. He served as the Global Head of the Firm’s Digital Health Practice from inception until his retirement in 2023. Wain’s practice emphasizes general representation of life sciences, technology and other operating companies from the startup stage through IPO. Wain’s practice also focuses on corporate governance matters, as well as mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances, and intellectual property licensing and management. In addition, Wain assists his client companies in financing matters, often involving the placement of debt and equity securities.

As a recognized life science and digital health thought-leader, Wain is a frequent speaker at programs addressing industry issues, including at the International CES Digital Health Summit, USC’s Body Computing Conference, Impact Forum and the Samsung: Health + Tech Conference. Wain has also served as the Chair of the BIO Digital Health Track at the BIO International Convention since 2014.

As both a founder and counsel, Wain has worked with venture capital-backed companies across a variety of fields. For example, in the field of genomic medicine, he works with groups that develop and deploy highperformance network technology for genomic research and medicine. He is also Vice-Chairman and Chair Elect of the Critical Path Institute, a public-private partnership created in part by the FDA, dedicated to integrating scientific advances into the development pathway. Wain has been widely recognized as a leading attorney in numerous publications, including among others, his recognition by The Daily Journal as one of California’s top attorneys. He was also recognized by The San Diego Business Journal Book of Influential Business Leaders in the legal category. Wain was previously named by Nature magazine as being instrumental to the success of San Diego as a biotechnology hub.

As a community leader, Wain is immediate past Chairman of the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research, one of the nation’s leading independent biomedical research institutes. He recently joined The Executive Committee of the board of the UCSD Moores Cancer Center where he is afforded a clinical perspective for the application of breakthroughs in genomic medicine and serves on the organizing committee for the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy. He is a founding director of both the Corporate Directors Forum and BIOCOM, the largest regional life science association in the world, representing more than 860 member companies and is a member of its Executive Committee.

Wain is a co-founder of seven companies, two of which became public. He is a third-generation Arizonan and earned his B.A. from the University of Arizona where he serves on the Advisory Board for Tech Launch Arizona. He completed post-graduate work as a Senior Fellow at the Australian National University and received his JD degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law where he served as President of the Hastings Board of Governors.

Wain is admitted to practice before the State Bar of Arizona and the California State Bar and is a member of the American Bar Association.

Education

University of California Hastings College of Law JD, 1981
University of Arizona BA