About

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department?

Eli Lilly Latin America is divided into five affiliates: Mexico; Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela; PECC (Peru, Ecuador, Central America and Caribbean countries); and South Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay). The team consists of the following lawyers: Latin America legal director Jorge Pasquel, Colombia, Venezuela and PECC (Peru, Ecuador, Central America and Caribbean) legal director Augusto Martínez., Brazil and South Cone legal director Gabriela Barros, Brazil and South Cone legal manager Tatiana Klein, Brazil legal coordinator Karina Sodre, México external counsel Alejandro Briseño and Latin America lawyer Erick Garcia.

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has been involved with in the last two years?

Negotiation and termination of the second brands agreements with key distributors with the sale of this second brands;

Review the corporate structure of the company in Latin America in order to assess the possibility of creating a new structure considering local laws and taxes;

Implement a new contract process that allows to have the proper authorizations and clauses.

What have been the major external trends that have impacted your team’s work over the past two years (market developments, changing regulatory environment, political events etc.)?

In the past years the change in governments around the countries in Latin America, had made the company to look for new way of doing business under an ethical, compliance and legal basis, according to new political environments and structures within the changes of governments.

As an innovative pharmaceutical company, you must also keep in mind the needs of the patients, and the private or public institutions that will benefit from that innovation. We must take this innovation hand-to-hand with the use of technology and the creation of new marketing schemes that allow ethical and healthy access to the medications.

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives?

Diversity and inclusion policies and committee

Review of compliance laws and regulations in order to deliver a proper interpretation

Participation in different pharmaceutical associations and chambers in Latin America

Social responsibilities programs such as ‘Tapitas’ in Mexico

How significant is collaboration within the legal team and how does that improve output?

I have always been convinced that teamwork helps deliver better results. As a team leader, it is necessary to identify the strengths and areas of opportunity of each team member to be able to divide the workload according to their skills so that work can flow in the best way in order to grant and achieve the main goals of a company and individuals.

Can you describe some of the challenges your team faces by working for an American pharmaceutical company in the Central American market?

There are differences in the way of interpreting and applying the laws between United States companies and companies around Latin America. These differences sometimes make it difficult to apply a criteria in clauses of a contract under the standards and norms of the United States, because there is no law in the country where you want to apply, or it is not so restrictive in that country, which turns out to be a challenge since you must negotiate with the counterparty, explain the context and sometimes, also negotiate internally so that there are exceptions.

How significant is collaboration within the legal team and how does that improve output?

I have always been convinced that teamwork helps deliver better results. As a team leader, it is necessary to identify the strengths and areas of opportunity of each team member to be able to divide the workload according to their skills so that work can flow in the best way in order to grant and achieve the main goals of a company and individuals.

Today, we live in a society which is a little bit selfish and individualistic, in which, to an extent, social media is the king that rules the world. We believe that we maintain a personal relationship with somebody, through a computer, tablet or cell phone, even if this person is our closest friend or only somebody you had met through social media. However, we are forgetting that a personal relationship also implies being present in a physical sense, with your peers as equals and should understand that we are all the same. We are humans, no matter the gender or preference, and as team leaders, we must also explore the small differences that make each member unique and empower them to achieve goals with clear and concrete objectives. We should accept and enjoy individualities to achieve a common goal.

Focus on… ethics

As lawyers, we must be clear that we provide a service, and we must do so with ethics and social responsibility. However, when you find a job in which you not only provide service to a client but, you help that client better his health, have years of quality life, or improve a clinical condition, then, it is no longer work or job, it is a vocation, it is the vocation to help others, as a lawyer in a pharmaceutical company, we must keep in mind that the ultimate goal should be to improve people’s lives. If we understand that, the work will be much easier. Of course, we must not forget the goals of the company, but we must always pursue them thinking about patients and their families. We must also remind, to all those future lawyers, students of the law career that, the labour of a lawyer, must always go hand in hand with justice, ethics, rectitude and above all, respect for people, whether our clients or our acquaintances. The day we forget these pillars, we will have forgotten what it means to be a lawyer.