What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The biggest challenge was the successful De-SPAC/IPO transaction we completed last year with Alvotech of which the Aztiq investment fund is the largest shareholder, making Alvotech the first Luxembourg domiciled dual-listed company in the United States and Iceland. Alvotech is a biotechnology company, focused solely on the development and manufacture of biosimilar medicines for patients worldwide.

As part of the Alvotech senior management team, I was jointly responsible for the planning, structuring, negotiating and execution of the De-SPAC/IPO

Not only did we have to negotiate the very technical business combination agreement with Oaktree Acquisition Corp. II and obtain shareholder and senior bondholder approval and support, but we also had to arrange backstop financing to replace potential redemptions by Oaktree Acquisition Corp. II shareholders that could occur as part of the business combination, as well as due to difficult market conditions in the midst of last year.

In addition, as part of the preparation for the IPO, we created and implemented an entirely new governance system for the entire Alvotech Group that takes into account applicable SEC and MAR regulations.

Do you have an example of a time when you have come up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works that did not result in a large expense?

We introduced a new legal database that makes it much easier for the team to manage active contracts through smart metadata.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

One of these is ‘smart risk-taking’: in-house lawyers, and especially general counsel, should have a sense of how to properly assess risk and how to communicate them. For example, they should generally inform business colleagues about legal factors and risks in a way that allows them to properly consider them in their business decisions but should not allow a potential risk to superimpose or block the business decision that needs to be made.