Team size: 4

What are the key projects you have been involved in over the past twelve months?

I lead the Pharmacrime Project at Novo Nordisk Colombia. My role is to implement the strategy for the protection of intellectual property rights, loss of exclusivity, smuggling, counterfeit medicines, and illegal compounding. I do this by coordinating the Public Affairs, Quality, Supply, and Regulatory teams so that, together, we can act both proactively and reactively in situations such as raids where our medicines are found, cases of counterfeiting or smuggling, unauthorised online sales and the entry of competitors with generics/biosimilars. In this role, I engage with authorities such as INVIMA, POLFA, SIJIN, and CTI, and I have conducted trainings to officials from these authorities on several occasions on how to identify counterfeit Novo Nordisk products.

I also participate in industry associations such as ANDI and AFIDRO, representing Novo Nordisk’s interests. As a result, we have raised awareness both internally and among these authorities about the seriousness of counterfeiting and the unauthorised sale of our products, also we ensured the appropriate website takedowns, criminal complaints, cease-and-desist letters and ultimately the closure of clinics that offer unauthorised products on the market, without marketing authorisation, claiming to contain our molecules.

Can you describe an instance where your legal advice directly influenced business strategy or commercial objectives?

The healthcare system in Colombia has faced significant challenges in recent months due to the financial sustainability issues affecting insurers, to the point that financial resources have not been sufficient to pay pharmaceutical companies. As a result, Novo Nordisk was compelled to identify innovative contracting mechanisms with insurers in order to protect our accounts receivable collection.

My legal support to the Market Access team consisted of designing and implementing a contracting model through which we could sell our products directly to the insurer in a way that created a win-win situation for both parties, because by selling directly, both sides could save many logistics-related costs. However, this was challenging because we had never done it before: Novo Nordisk had never sold directly to an insurer and had always done so through pharmaceutical service providers, and there were some restrictions and implications for Novo Nordisk internal processes if we were to do it differently.

As a result, my advice enabled the execution of the first direct sale agreement, allowed Novo to be paid directly by an insurer and helped us achieve our accounts receivable collection target, which is currently one of the company’s priorities.

Thanks to this and all the work done last year, I was given the Best Business Partner Award.

How has the role of general counsel evolved, and what are the most important attributes for the modern in-house lawyer?

I come from private practice; I worked at Gómez-Pinzón Pérez-Llorca, and when I moved in-house, I definitely had to become a business partner. An in-house lawyer cannot be someone that, when consulted, focuses solely on drafting memos highlighting the risks of a particular decision, or concluding that a proposal is not viable because violates a regulation. Ultimately, that only generates fear in the internal client and does not help the business, because next time they may choose not to involve Legal, assuming Legal will say no. And when they do decide to involve Legal, it is often too late and everyone ends up wasting their time and resources.

Instead, the role of a GC is to understand the business, understand how the commercial dynamics work, know what the company’s sales targets are, which products are being prioritized, which channels are being prioritised, what challenges sales representatives or KAMs face in the field when negotiating, how is the competition affecting our sales, how exclusivity can protect our business, among others. The purpose of doing all this as GC is to anticipate our internal client’s needs and deliver an efficient solution. For this, I believe an in house-lawyer needs to be curious, humble, open minded, communicative and outgoing enough to get to know all internal clients and understand the roles they execute within the company, so as to identify the purpose behind each consult. A modern in-house lawyer also needs to be a true optimist, empathetic and resourceful, making the internal client´s need their need as well. It is only this way a lawyer can become a true business partner.

Beyond your legal role, is there a cause or initiative you are especially passionate about?

When I joined Novo Nordisk, I was questioning my career as a lawyer and thought that this company might offer me the opportunity to move into a different area. At that time, I was planning to explore Market Access and Commercial with the purpose of eventually moving there. As a result of that questioning, I began to learn more about the business, asked more questions, became deeply involved in initiatives, showed genuine interest and prioritised consults coming from those areas. I even completed a course in Market Access to better understand the context of the healthcare sector in Colombia, and I discovered a real passion for the initiatives coming from those teams.

Ultimately, however, this process renewed and reaffirmed my passion for the law and the crucial role that we, as lawyers, play within a company. It taught me that, in my capacity as counsel, I am a key enabler in turning business needs into reality. As a result, I am now involved from the outset, which creates greater efficiency and ensures that each initiative or project is developed on a stronger and better protected foundation.

So, in my case, the passion I discovered in other areas helped me reconnect with my original passion for being a lawyer.