About

The legal team of Swiss multinational chemicals and biotechnology company Lonza is made up of more than 50 legal, ethics and compliance and IP professionals globally, of which around 20 are based in Basel. The rest of the team is spread between the US, the UK and China. In addition, the EHS (environment, health and safety) and sustainability department also reports into the group general counsel and company secretary, Andreas Bohrer. The team describes itself as: ‘One team, no silos, working hand-in-hand across regions, and leveraging the combined know-how of legal, intellectual property and ethics and compliance’. In recent years, the department has adjusted the coverage model of the team so that every business unit head has a dedicated business partner on the legal and intellectual property team. ‘In addition, we have certain centres of excellence to drive harmonisation’, says Bohrer, who adds, ‘this model is very flexible and allows us to immediately respond to the requirements and strategic focus initiatives of the company, and to ensure a global approach with collaboration across regions and teams’. In 2017, the team drove the US$5.5bn acquisition of Capsugel, a complex acquisition which allowed the team to leverage the ethics and compliance team of Capsugel, by following the approach of ‘taking the best of both worlds’, according to Bohrer. Capsugel’s ethics and compliance team has now become Lonza’s global ethics and compliance team under the leadership of Stacey Hanna, general counsel ethics and compliance. Over the years, the legal team has had to adapt to the growth path of the company, having to keep up with the pace of numerous and complex growth projects and M&As. ‘We accomplished this without a headcount increase and with the same team members, simply by adjusting the organisational set-up and creating a dedicated central task force that could get up-and-running on strategic projects within hours’, says Bohrer. Lonza’s legal, ethics and compliance and IP team has retained its lean approach since 2015, even during the unprecedented growth phase of the Lonza business. ‘This has helped to increase efficiency while maintaining the beauty, agility and advantages of a small team’, reflects Bohrer.