Advancing Pharmaceutical Law!
The legal industry plays a crucial role in shaping business operations and ensuring compliance across various sectors. Law firms today are adapting to the growing challenges of industries like pharmaceuticals, where legal challenges intersect with regulatory requirements and technological advancements.
As businesses evolve, the demand for specialized legal expertise continues to rise, particularly in areas where law and industry converge. This creates a unique environment that requires a deep understanding of legal principles and the ability to anticipate industry-specific challenges and solutions.
As the Director of Joyce A Tan & Partners LLC, Frederick Tay brought a unique blend of transactional and operational expertise to the legal profession. Having transitioned from in-house counsel roles back to private practice, Frederick brings a unique perspective shaped by his experiences in global pharmaceutical companies.
He demonstrates exceptional capability in managing both commercial transactions and compliance issues, ensuring that businesses operate smoothly within legal frameworks. His ability to communicate complex legal risks in a clear and accessible manner positions him as an influential leader within the legal community, one who continually strives to bridge the gap between legal expertise and business needs.
At Joyce A Tan & Partners LLC, a firm popular for its focus on providing forward-thinking legal solutions, Frederick is a key figure in enhancing the firm’s offerings. With a strong focus on technology and life sciences, the firm is committed to staying ahead of industry trends and supporting clients with innovative legal strategies. The firm’s approach to legal practice is centered around guiding clients through emerging challenges, making it a trusted partner for businesses seeking legal advice and a comprehensive understanding of the broader regulatory and operational sphere.
Let’s explore Frederick’s innovative leadership journey in the field of law.
A Leap of Faith in Legal Career Transition
Frederick has been an in-house counsel for slightly more than 10 years and still remembers the first day he joined, 17 March 2014. It was with mixed emotions that he left his first law firm to join the pharmaceutical MNC. A part of him always yearned to return to private practice, as he enjoyed the challenge of engaging in intellectual discourse and the opportunity to be exposed to different industries. This does not mean that being an in-house counsel does not have its challenges.
There were certainly days when he was trying to juggle the many different and multifaceted requests, and he could not help but have much admiration for an in-house counsel and the responsibilities that come with it. However, he still believes he has much to offer as a private practice lawyer, and the opportunity came when Jeffrey Lim, one of the co-managing directors of Joyce A Tan & Partners LLC, took a leap of faith and offered him an opportunity back. He would dare say it was a huge leap of faith on Jeffrey Lim’s part, and he is glad to be able to repay that faith.
Balancing Compliance and Transactions in Legal Practice
In his current role, Frederick has reprised his role as both a transactional and commercial lawyer. He does not believe it is fair to say that he is only doing mergers and acquisitions, which was what he started off doing back in his earlier days as a private lawyer. However, given his deep-seated knowledge and experience in managing operational legal matters, including compliance work, he strongly believes he should bring those skill sets to his current law firm to better serve its clients.
When he was an in-house counsel, he had the rare opportunity to work in different roles, starting from his first few years as a legal manager advising and supporting the consumer healthcare business, before he had the opportunity to move to a global role overseeing legal matters for both the skin health and oral health portfolio in the UK.
When he finally returned to Singapore, he took on the role of the legal director of the Singapore entity, which involved overseeing pharmaceutical regulatory matters, legal matters, and general matters relating to the operations of a headquarters in Singapore, given that their offices were the Asia headquarters back then. When he finally left the pharmaceutical MNC, he became a global legal expert in digital privacy and cybersecurity.
It is difficult to compare his current role with his previous role, given the multitude of businesses and work that he supported. If he can sum up the difference in one sentence, it will be that he was very much an operational lawyer in his previous role, as opposed to a more transactional lawyer in his current role.
Impacting Lives Through Pharmaceutical Law
The most rewarding part of Frederick’s work is the ability to directly impact the lives of millions, if not billions, of patients and consumers.
As an in-house counsel for a pharmaceutical MNC, he is not only advising on the law and its application. He is part of an amazing team ensuring that medicines reach millions of patients and innovative drugs are delivered to those who need them the most. He is part of the team that supports regulatory filings, ensures supply continuity, and oversees clinical trial studies, ensuring that all of these are done in a compliant and lawful manner.
There is no “I” when working as an in-house counsel in a pharmaceutical MNC. The most rewarding part is knowing that the patient, at the end of the journey, is receiving the drugs they need at affordable prices. He still remembers during COVID-19, when several patients were waiting for therapeutic products to help relieve their symptoms.
Given the opportunity to support both the pharmaceutical and the then-consumer healthcare business of the pharmaceutical MNC, his team had to work quickly to ensure supply continuity for symptom-relieving products and those that could help manage patients’ symptoms. They may not have received the same recognition as the first-line workers, but the work they did supporting the entire delivery of products was nothing short of inspiring.
Prioritizing Key Innovations in Fast-Paced Organizations
He emphasizes the importance of education to ensure that leadership understands both the opportunities and risks that technology, particularly AI, can bring. In a fast-paced organization, there are always new innovations waiting to surface. The ability to sieve through them and ensure that only the key ones are prioritized is a crucial trait to acquire. Without real priority or objective in sight, one may lose themselves in all the matters and fail to drive the business effectively.
Frederick believes it is also important to translate legal risks and challenges in a way that the leadership can appreciate. When communicating with leaders, simply listing down the risks without bringing them to light is akin to not raising the risks at all. He advises younger counsels that their role as in-house counsel is not only to be proficient in the areas of law most important to the business but also to be good communicators, conveying legal concepts in a succinct and clear manner.
Continuous Learning in AI and Life Sciences
Frederick shares that despite having the rare opportunity to work on AI-related matters and participate in life science and AI-related discussions every other day in his last two years in his previous role, he does not profess to know everything. He is always humbled by the impressive knowledge of his peers in the industry, and as a result, he never stops learning from them.
The marriage between technology and life science is indeed a very rare combination, and it is challenging to navigate the issues comfortably and, most importantly, advise on the risks associated with them, given how heavily regulated life science, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, is. His former peers in his previous industry and in his current firm are very experienced in their field. As such, he never stops learning from them.
However, once one acquires a certain understanding and knowledge, it is important to share. Sharing with the industry and peers refines ideas and perceptions as one prepares for speeches and, after presenting and receiving feedback from peers, challenges one’s perception and understanding.
Frederick learns best through frequent discussions and interactions, and he learns the most about this ever-evolving combination of technology and life science by sharing and interacting.
Essential Strategies for Managing Legal Challenges
According to Frederick, active listening and fierce prioritization are very important strategies for effectively managing the legal complexities of pharmaceutical and technology matters. Keeping oneself updated on the evolving legal landscape and the new technologies in the industry is part of the basic skill set that one definitely requires to manage the legal complexities.
However, apart from such basic requirements, it is important that when one engages the business to help them with their issues and projects, they need to ensure that they practice active listening to understand the business needs and requirements. There can be occasions where business stakeholders take a very one-directional view of the problems to solve but do not realize that there are real underlying issues that need to be resolved first before diving into the solutions.
This is when active listening truly matters, as one probes with questions to help synthesize the issues. There will also be occasions where, after listing down all the issues, one realizes that there are too many issues to resolve, and this is when fierce prioritization helps. This is when one may have to exercise their risk assessment muscle and work with the business to recommend certain risk areas that will need to be prioritized and resolved first.
All of the above requires many years of experience working with the business to truly appreciate its needs and ask the right questions.
Enhancing Legal Advice through Product Understanding
For those aspiring to specialize in legal roles within the pharmaceutical or life science industries, Frederick advises that while prior experience in these industries is not necessary, it is crucial to maintain a curious mindset and an insatiable appetite to learn from colleagues, particularly those in the sales and medical teams. Understanding the products within the company can significantly enhance one’s appreciation of the legal nuances when supporting the business, thereby making legal advice more relevant and appropriate.
Supporting Clients with Strategic Insights
Being in private practice and serving as a director at Joyce A Tan & Partners LLC requires Frederick to maintain a business-oriented mindset as he contributes to the firm’s growth. As the firm’s motto, “Lawyers who lead,” suggests, he must not only develop as a lawyer but also ensure that he supports clients by staying ahead and helping them understand the potential risks and opportunities their engagements may entail. As part of the firm’s leadership responsible for its growth, he views himself not just as a contributor but, more importantly, as a leader who will chart the firm’s future.
His long-term goal is to help the firm reach greater heights and carve a niche in innovative areas such as technology in the life sciences and pharmaceutical space. This differentiation is essential for the firm to stand out in the industry and support clients effectively by being a business partner that helps grow their businesses, a role he has consistently fulfilled as an in-house counsel.
Adapting to Tech Advancements
When Frederick first started practicing law, there was always the impression that legal and tech could not be combined, as anything tech or digital-related seemed to break down whenever the lawyers used it. This started to fuel the impression that lawyers, who are meant to be conservative in thinking, could not adapt to the fast-evolving pace of technology.
Fast-forward to 2024, when Frederick attended the TechLaw Fest in Singapore and was amazed by the number of different technologies that served the different needs of a lawyer. For lawyers to remain relevant, they must start embracing technology even more than their more senior peers. Any failure to do so may lead to lawyers becoming less and less relevant.
Advocating for Diversity in the Legal Industry
In his more than ten years at the pharmaceutical MNC, Frederick participated in several different employee resource groups, including assuming the role of secretariat for the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI). He even gave talks as part of the group to encourage men to be true allies to women in assuming leadership positions.
He strongly believes that the legal industry, like any other industry, can benefit from a more diverse and inclusive environment. In fact, the legal industry can benefit more from such an environment, as it needs more diverse perspectives to support the different echelons of society.
