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Outsourced: Axiom seals five year contract with consumer giant Johnson & Johnson

Consumer and pharmaceutical goods giant Johnson & Johnson has entered into a five-year deal with Axiom to support the company’s global procurement contracting function.

This increases Axiom’s life sciences portfolio, which currently serves 22 of the top 25 global pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies, including nine of the top ten. Overall, Axiom has 2,000 lawyers and other professionals working for half of the Fortune 100 across 15 regions.

Axion will be responsible for thousands of procurement agreements in more than 10 different languages, across a dozen contract types for Johnson & Johnson, through a team of negotiators and subject matter experts, as well as a team of lawyers who will provide ‘white glove service’ for more complex agreements.

Most of Axiom’s work for Johnson & Johnson will come from its office in Wroclaw, Poland which opened in late 2014. Axiom’s Chicago office will also serve as a ‘front-door’ same time zone support for North America.

Axiom executive vice president Al Giles (pictured) said: ‘we are pleased by what this deal represents for contracting in the life sciences industry: the progression from an artisanal approach to a model that applies standardisation, automation and process.’

‘That approach not only creates a more efficient contracting function, but it also has commercial benefits – shortening cycle times and better managing risk’, he added.

In 2014, BT selected Axiom for its global legal outsourcing and analytics for a three-year contract, with Axiom contracted to undertake 30-50 instructions per day across Europe, US/Canada and APAC, from simple work such as non-disclosure agreements and first mark-ups of contracts during requests for proposals, to more sophisticated work like end-to-end negotiations of master service agreements and product and service agreements.

Axiom supports BT from its European headquarters in London and international centres in Belfast, Gurgaon and Houston, giving the telecoms giant commercial and administrative support for 20 hours a day.

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk