What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

On the external front, the most important project was the successful spin-off of the entire consumer healthcare division into a new legal entity — Opella Healthcare Argentina. The two-year project also included the building of a new quality control lab and the simultaneous transfer of employees, assets, contracts and inventory, as well as obtaining all regulatory permits to enable Opella Healthcare Argentina to act as a pharmaceutical company and to operate with the portfolio of medicines, cosmetic and food products pertaining to this division in a smooth transition from its predecessor— Sanofi-aventis Argentina. The legal strategy implemented for this project, reducing regulatory timeframes and ensuring that there would be no disruption in the supply of products to the market while the spin-off took place, was a leading case within regulations of local health authorities, which required the development of adequate structures to ensure compliance with legal requirements and out-of-the-box solutions.

On the internal front, challenges brought by the recent pandemic forced us to reinvent the way we worked, through full digitalisation of the legal department, including not only the enhancement of intranet, enabling timely supply of template agreements, digital copies of all corporate records, virtual trainings and workshops on topics of interest and guidance documents. Also, gradual implementation of electronic signature. Additionally, the legal department conducted a full analysis of sales representative’s legislation that enabled an innovative approach to the promoting of prescription medicines and the distributing of medical samples.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how do you intend to assist with this?

Sanofi’s focus is always on the patients, chasing miracles of science to improve people’s lives. As such, a broad pipeline of products is in different stages of clinical research, under registration process or about to be launched. The legal department’s challenge is to be a true business partner and ensure that our activities are aligned with local legislation where we do business, and how our products are marketed, anticipating changes in the legal environment and helping in the implementation of the business strategy.

What do you feel is the best way to get more women into in-house legal leadership positions?

The pandemic challenged companies throughout the world to reinvent the way their employees worked. The shift from fully-presential to remote work, paired with employee commitment that managed to meet performance objectives and even over-achieve them showed that the paradigm of presential work has become obsolete.

In turn, this led to transversal projects being led and managed virtually by employees working remotely and allowed for new opportunities, challenges and enhanced visibility for women unable to relocate to other countries. After mandatory isolation, companies adopting mixed remote and presential work schemes, allowing for a better balance for women to access leadership positions. It is still too early to assess whether such opportunities will cause more women to reach leadership positions, but I am hopeful that the new ways of working will create a more appropriate environment to indirectly serve that purpose.