Legal and Compliance Counsel Gulf and Saudi Arabia

Job Description

Legal & Compliance Counsel Saudi Arabia will drive legal and compliance excellence at country level, through directly leading legal and compliance work and providing guidance in alignment with the strategy of the local business and the functional Legal & Compliance priorities.

Major Accountabilities

• Adopt a pro-active, business focused approach by:
• Leading compliance and risk management processes to drive business priorities while protecting the company and best serving our customers and patients
• Developing, refine, and adapt the ethics, risk and compliance program to meet evolving requirements and promote consistently high standards and operational excellence
• Providing legal advice and guidance to the business, as well as manage compliance with legal requirements.
• Acting as a true business partner, adopting a pro-active, business focused approach to negotiating and drafting transactions and contracts, assisting in management decision processes, and delivering robust risk assessments.
• Providing legal & compliance advice and determining appropriate actions/ processes in line with local strategy, local legal trends and legislation changes.
• Reviewing, drafting and management of agreements, memoranda of understanding, distribution agreement, service level agreements, sponsorship agreements, pharmacy marketing agreements etc.
• Supporting legal & compliance reporting, monitoring & training, incl. transparency reporting, dawn-raid training
• Supporting enterprise risk management, third party risk management, contract management, risk assessment management, contract management and CORE etc.
• Ensuring timely and high-quality analysis of legislation, legislation drafts and their potential impact on the business processes
• Providing effective legal counsel to assigned business teams within the Gulf and Saudi Arabia on all aspects of pharmaceuticals business
• Providing quality legal advice in areas including strategic partnerships, data and digital, business development and licensing, contracts, intellectual property and competition law
• Delivering day-to-day legal services including drafting, negotiating, and settling commercial agreements within the scope of the assigned business teams.
• Acting as a true business partner, adopting a pro-active, business focused approach to negotiating and drafting transactions and contracts, assisting in management decision processes, and delivering robust risk assessments.
• Acting independently in complex legal matters and transactions.
• Driving simplification and standardization projects and support the implementation of new tools and systems.
• Contributing to Gulf and Saudi Arabia legal initiatives.
• Consistently explore opportunities to improve and strengthen the culture of compliance, looking for ways of addressing risks in an efficient and agile manner.
• Responsible for anticipating, identifying and analysing legal issues and the development of legal strategies and solutions. Continuously monitor developments in the business, local market and legal/regulatory regime to adequately assess legal risks and opportunities for Sandoz and propose concrete actions to mitigate risks and exploit opportunities.
  

Key Performance Indicators

• Internal stakeholder satisfaction with amount, appropriateness, and timeliness of legal support provided (i.e. pragmatic and principled, reliable, fast, customer oriented)
• Strong, collaborative leadership displayed, influencing outside area of direct responsibility with business acumen and excellent communication
• Successful enforcement/defence of contracts within Gulf and Saudi
• Full integration into the legal and compliance team and strong collaboration with key business stakeholders
• Strong cross-functional collaboration
• Successful outcomes to significant investigations & litigations
  
  

Minimum Requirements

• Law school graduate & bar qualification /licensed attorney
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Arabic is essential.
• 6 years post qualification experience required: ideally gained within a healthcare / pharmaceutical environment, and/or, with a top-tier law firm representing healthcare.
• Proven experience in providing specialized legal advice
• Prior experience in pharmaceuticals or healthcare industry is desirable.
• Experience in working in the Gulf and Saudi markets is preferable
• Ability to analyse complex legal and compliance issues.
• Strong verbal & written communication skills; together with a high ability to influence and negotiate.
• Proven ability to deal positively when working within tight time pressures & demanding clients.
• Financial/business acumen and business partnering skills
• Demonstrate professional & culturally sensitive work ethics
• Change agility and resilience
• Strong analytical and organisational skills.
• Results oriented mentality i.e. “ability to get things done” avoiding legal “over engineering” while safeguarding Sandoz rights.
• Ability to question and improve the status quo.
• Ability to set priorities and manage a wide ranging workload.
  
  

Why Sandoz?

Generic and Biosimilar medicines are the backbone of the global medicines industry. Sandoz, a leader in this sector, provided more than 900 million patient treatments across 100+ countries in 2024 and while we are proud of this achievement, we have an ambition to do more!

With investments in new development capabilities, production sites, new acquisitions, and partnerships, we have the opportunity to shape the future of Sandoz and help more patients gain access to low-cost, high-quality medicines, sustainably.

Our momentum is powered by an open, collaborative culture driven by our talented and ambitious colleagues, who, in return for applying their skills, experience an agile and collegiate environment with impactful, flexible-hybrid careers, where diversity is welcomed and where personal growth is supported!

Join us!