Vivet Therapeutics is dedicated to developing innovative gene therapy treatments for orphan diseases. General counsel and finance director since February 2017, Susan Coles explains the unique role in-house lawyers can have at start-up companies: ‘My role was beyond the boundaries of pure legal work, as there was only two other employees and now there’s 15 of us.

I’m the head of legal and finance and have basically been doing anything regarding HR and finance law’. Coles thrives on the challenge of this multidimensional role, remarking, ‘I’ve been out of my comfort zone a lot. New areas are fascinating and you learn a lot, specialising more and more as one keeps learning is a great opportunity’. Before Vivet Therapeutics, Coles was group general counsel at global biopharmaceutical company Stallergenes Greer for three years. There, she managed a five-person legal team earning praise for her contribution to Stallergenes’ cross border merger with Greer, the first ever complete cross border France-UK merger that had taken place.

Prior to this Coles, enjoyed notable in-house roles including as general counsel at Inventiva Pharma, and senior counsel in charge of licensing and acquisitions for Laboratoires Fournier, and subsequently for Solvay Pharmaceuticals after its acquisition of Laboratories Fournier. A Canadian national, Coles obtained her first legal qualification, an LLB from the University of Toronto in 1990.