About

Nicolas Pourbaix’s role as senior counsel, legal director for multinational biopharmaceutical company Amgen, is a hybrid between a specialised anti-trust counsel, involving him advising the business on all areas of competition law, including pricing, supply management, cooperation agreements and public procurement across Europe including a group of 15 countries. This combination of specialities is something which one nominator says: ‘Gives him an excellent mix of specific subject matter expertise in antitrust matters as well as a general overview of legal issues applicable to a large life sciences company across multiple European countries’. In addition to this, he is also the lead counsel for Europe-level access and policy issues working very closely with the company’s government affairs and policy team, also representing Amgen in a few working groups at EFPIA, the European innovative pharmaceutical industry trade association. One nominator states Pourbaix is: ‘extremely knowledgeable about Amgen, the company’s objectives and the specificities of the life sciences industry, which makes him an effective interface between the company and external counsel’. The other half of his role involves coordinating general legal support to what is known in Amgen as the European mid-sized markets, which is a group of commercial affiliates in 14 European countries including Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, as well as the Nordics and Baltics, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Greece. ‘This is a very varied role, advising on all legal matters of all sizes and importance affecting the daily business of our local affiliates. This is an extremely hands-on part of the job, providing practical advice in real-time to a large variety of issues, and coordinating a team of local in-house and external counsel’, says Pourbaix. The multi-dimensionality of his role allows Pourbaix to keep a specialist focus, advising the business on cutting-edge issues and bringing real-added value across the European business by providing immediate highly specialised advice in a complex area of law while ‘benefitting from the closest understanding of the business and its strategy’, says Pourbaix. He has been central to bringing the legal team back on the radar in the aforementioned European mid-sized market, which has subsequently reduced external legal spend. Pourbaix has also been responsible for instituting a systematic legal check of all pricing business cases going through the European pricing committee. ‘Somewhat counter-intuitively, this has resulted in the business being willing to take more risks as they feel better informed of the actual exposure’, adds Pourbaix. Prior to joining Amgen in 2016, he spent 12 years in private practice, advising on EU competition and public procurement law issues in a variety of sectors including life sciences. Displaying the high: ‘[Pourbaix] is one of the most astute lawyers and one of the nicest people I have ever come across. With great charm, sophistication and subtlety of mind he will lead his business clients to the best possible outcome’.