Securities Class Action Settlements

Drew D. Pascarella

Senior Lecturer,
SC Johnson College of Business,
Cornell University

Drew Pascarella is an expert in merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, including deal process and valuation. A former senior investment banker with extensive experience at bulge bracket banks, Mr. Pascarella has advised clients on M&A transactions valued at over $35 billion, and led equity, convertible, and debt financing transactions that generated over $9 billion in proceeds. Mr. Pascarella has extensive expertise with transactions in the technology and telecommunications industries, among others. He has been retained as an expert witness and testified in deposition and at trial.

As a director in the Technology Investment Banking Group at Citigroup Global Markets, Mr. Pascarella led the execution of numerous notable transactions. These included the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks, the largest joint venture in corporate history; Nokia’s $8.1 billion acquisition of NAVTEQ and associated €1.8 billion debt initial public offering (IPO); Andrew Corporation’s $2.6 billion sale to CommScope; and Lucent’s $1.6 billion convertible bond offering.

Prior to joining Citigroup, Mr. Pascarella led the design, development, implementation, and support of Goldman Sachs’s global trading technology systems, with a focus on fixed income, equities, FX, commodities, and external hedge fund clients. In addition, he has extensive expertise trading futures for agriculture, currencies, energy, and financial indices.

An award-winning lecturer at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, Mr. Pascarella teaches courses on investment banking, with a focus on M&A, capital raising, and corporate finance. He directs the Investment Banking Immersion, a practitioner-led program for students seeking careers in banking, and is the former associate dean of MBA Programs. Mr. Pascarella also founded SC Johnson’s M.B.A. Fintech Intensive, which provides in-depth instruction on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and the role of technology applications in financial services.

Mr. Pascarella serves as managing director and head of East Coast Banking of Vista Point Advisors, which provides strategic M&A and capital-raising guidance to software and internet businesses.

Gautam Gowrisankaran

Professor of Economics,
Columbia University;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research

Gautam Gowrisankaran is an expert in industrial organization, healthcare economics, and energy and environmental economics. Professor Gowrisankaran has analyzed issues of market definition and market power, the competitive effects of mergers, and claims of attempted monopolization. He has also addressed allegations of tying, foreclosure, and other exclusionary practices arising in such industries as healthcare, consumer goods, high-tech products, payment services, and transportation.

An experienced expert witness, Professor Gowrisankaran has been retained by federal and state agencies as well as by private clients in numerous high-profile mergers, antitrust litigation matters, and consumer class actions. His trial testimony includes United States of America et al. v. JetBlue Airways Corporation and Spirit Airlines Inc.; United States et al. v. UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Change Healthcare Inc.; Sidibe v. Sutter Health; In re: Purdue Pharma L.P. et al.; and Federal Trade Commission v. Hackensack Meridian Health Inc. and Englewood Healthcare Foundation. He has consulted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on retail and technology issues and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on airline matters and mergers in the healthcare space.

In his research, Professor Gowrisankaran conducts both theoretical and empirical studies of topics related to industrial organization and competition. He has particular expertise in industries that are highly regulated and exhibit rapid technological change, such as healthcare and energy, as well as markets in which prices are negotiated.

One focus of Professor Gowrisankaran’s recent research is energy, including renewable energy integration, electricity regulation in the presence of energy transitions, and enforcement of environmental laws. He has also analyzed a variety of issues in healthcare markets, such as hospital competition, the impact of countervailing health insurer market power, and the price impact of hospital mergers.

A prolific author, Professor Gowrisankaran has published research in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Journal of Political Economy. He has served on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including the American Economic Review and the RAND Journal of Economics. In addition, Professor Gowrisankaran has written analyses for a legal audience, including in the Antitrust Law Journal. He has been honored with best paper awards and recommended by Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) as a Global Elite Thought Leader, leading competition economist, and consulting expert in the competition field.

Global Competition Review recognized Professor Gowrisankaran in its inaugural list of the world’s most important antitrust academics. He was also honored in Lexology’s Client Choice lists in 2022 and 2025.

Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia, Professor Gowrisankaran was a tenured professor of economics and the Peter and Nancy Salter Chair in Healthcare Management at the University of Arizona. He has held visiting academic appointments at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Yale University, and Harvard University, among others.

Professor Gowrisankaran serves on the U.S. Congressional Budget Office Health Advisory Panel. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Alice Chen

Associate Professor,
Sol Price School of Public Policy;
Senior Fellow,
Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics,
University of Southern California

Alice Chen specializes in health economics and labor economics. Professor Chen has expertise in a range of issues involving healthcare and pharmaceutical firms, including pharmaceutical competition and innovation, healthcare labor markets, and provider payment models.

Professor Chen has served as a consulting damages expert on life sciences matters, estimating the impact of allegedly false pharmaceutical marketing on prescription drug sales. In healthcare matters, she has offered written and deposition testimony on health insurance plan design in relation to class certification. She has testified at trial on statistical analyses of clinical trial data and regulatory drug approval. Professor Chen has also provided healthcare consulting services to pharmaceutical companies, including analyses of drug clinical trial data.

Professor Chen’s research has focused on improving the efficiency of healthcare markets, biologics and biosimilars innovation and competition, and the drivers and impacts of healthcare provider behavior. Her recent research analyzes the impact of Medicare policies on provider treatment decisions and healthcare outcomes and potential impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act on drug competition, pricing, and innovation. Professor Chen has presented her work before regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and the Congressional Budget Office.

Professor Chen has published articles in leading economics, health policy, and medical journals, including the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Health Affairs, JAMA Internal Medicine, and the Journal of Health Economics. Her research has also been cited in major media outlets, including Bloomberg, CBS News, Forbes, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

At USC Price, Professor Chen teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in health economics and health finance. The USC Health Administration Graduate Program has recognized her as Outstanding Faculty of the Year.