What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

As legal professionals within Novartis, we are responsible for providing business-critical legal advice and support teams across the organisation in key areas. The most important cases we have been involved in include strategic patent litigation, ensuring compliance with data privacy laws, managing antitrust risks, clinical research projects, and various digital projects based on improving our interactions and communications with our stakeholders. On the operational side, we take part in various tenders and M&A projects.

In addition, as a company with an innovative perspective, we are also involved in various collaborations and projects that improve the delivery of healthcare services based on artificial intelligence technology with the aim of accelerating access to medicine and treatment. With AI based projects, we aim to increase efficiency throughout our business.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

We have our own internal approval processes for the proper management of activities in our company. As a result of both the involvement of legal in the contract processes and the increase in awareness in our company through various training courses. Also, in our contract templates, while we apply our global policies within the framework of local legislation, we update them with guidance that business owners can easily understand and collect them on a platform accessible to internal stakeholders. Thus, business owners save time for both themselves and the legal department by engaging the legal department only in case of deviations from our standard contract templates.

On the other hand, through the digital platform we have developed to manage our compliance processes accurately and effectively, the versions of the relevant guidelines for the planned activities adapted to local legislation can be accessed through the platform and our approval processes can be completed on a single platform through the guidance of the relevant guidelines. This innovation has not only saved us time previously spent on manual internal approval processes, but also improved the collaboration of our teams and ensured that all resources are gathered in one hand and accessible to everyone.

What is a cause, business related or otherwise, that you care about, and why?

An example of one of the causes I care about is sustainability. Considering that the world’s resources are limited, using them responsibly is one of the most important things for building a sustainable future. Sustainable policies provide many benefits such as protecting the environment, improving public health by promoting healthier living environments, reducing the negative effects of climate change and contributing to profitability in the long term.

Businesses and companies are also making significant progress by adopting sustainable practices and developing projects on various issues such as reducing carbon footprint, water saving, waste management, investing in renewable energy sources, sustainable procurement policies.

On the other hand, I believe that the importance of laws and environmental regulations that aim to encourage sustainable practices in society and various sectors is one of the basic building blocks for the creation of a sustainable future. It is motivating and very proud for me to be a part of this in the company I work for, with the projects we have improved within the scope of environmental sustainability.