Team size    25

  How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?  

Our company is a leading global biotechnology solutions provider, with substantial operations in China. Recently, the elevated geopolitical tension poses particularly significant challenges to our ongoing operations and growth strategies. With a modest legal team size and operating budget, we work diligently and smartly, leveraging all available resources to help ensure that the day-to-day business activities of our group of companies run smoothly—yet never losing sight of major risk factors. We resort to external expertise whenever needed and utilize cutting-edge technologies, including AI, to manage workload and ensure the quality of our work products.

Further, our team integrates both the legal and intellectual property (IP) functions, offering a unique perspective that combines traditional risk mitigation (legal) with value creation (IP generation and innovation). We are not a passive member of the team but an active contributor to the value we provide to our customers and partners.

During FY 2024, we helped the Board and the senior management team analyze and respond to significant uncertainties and risks brought about by, inter alia, the proposed “BioSecure Act” legislation in the U.S. Congress.

Through an innovative litigation strategy, our legal team has also made a significant contribution to the company’s bottom line and has been recognized as an outstanding performer by the Group.

Finally, alongside the IP team, we helped the Group complete one of the largest biotech–pharma out-licensing deals in the world last year, bringing in over two hundred million U.S. dollars as an upfront payment to the Company.

How do you balance being a legal risk manager with being a strategic business enabler, and where do you see the biggest tensions?

A lawyer often forgets that they are not practicing law in a vacuum. Rather, they are counsel to the client, providing practical solutions within the bounds of the law and regulations. An in-house lawyer will do well to keep that in mind whenever addressing a problem raised by an internal business colleague. Furthermore, I see too many lawyers who are unable to explain legal concepts in easily understood and business-relevant terms, which is essential for enabling business colleagues to understand risks and make informed decisions.

As business and technology are always ahead of the law, finding room to maneuver within legal boundaries is often the biggest challenge for an in-house lawyer.

How do you see AI and automation reshaping the legal profession, and how are you leveraging technology in your own legal team?

AI and related technologies have already changed—and will continue to reshape—the legal profession. Basic information retrieval, simple drafting, and even the composition of legal memos or opinions have become vastly more efficient.

We have implemented all available AI tools based on large language models (LLMs) within GenScript’s Legal and IP team and are currently automating our contract drafting, review, and management systems. We will continue to monitor and implement new tools (e.g., those based on reasoning and AGI) as they become available. For this, we are fortunate to have a very strong team of computer/software scientists and IT professionals.