Funke Abimbola
Managing counsel (UK & Ireland)
Roche Products
Funke Abimbola made the leap from private practice to in-house at the beginning of last year and hasn’t looked back since. She says that she is the ‘only non-medic’ in her family and has consequently found her home at the pharmaceutical giant.
She now heads up a team of six that tries to retain as much work in-house as possible. This, she says, is a matter of policy as part of an ongoing efficiency drive that she has instigated since joining Roche and also a means of fostering closer relationships between the lawyers and commercial and scientific experts within the organisation and demonstrating their understanding of the business. ‘We only outsource work if a matter is complex and requires niche expertise or intense man-hours that cannot be resourced in-house,’ she says.
Abimbola does not have a formal legal panel but instead has a number of firms that she prefers to instruct regularly. ‘They are all firms who know and understand our business and have significant experience of advising within the pharmaceutical sector,’ she adds.
Highlights for Abimbola and her team include providing legal advice throughout 2012 on two new strategically important oncology products due for launch in early 2013. ‘Our advice has really shaped the nature and manner in which we launch these products while also accommodating commercial considerations,’ she says.
Law firms used: Arnold & Porter, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Covington & Burling, DAC Beachcroft, Eversheds, Herbert Smith Freehills, McCann FitzGerald
2012-present: Managing counsel (UK & Ireland), Roche Products
2008-11: Senior solicitor, IBB Solicitors
2006-07: Assistant, Pictons
2001-05: Assistant, Campbell Hooper