Legal Advisor

Are you passionate about life science? Do you have experience within drafting, reviewing, and negotiating contracts?

If so, now is your chance to join Ascendis Pharma as our new Legal Advisor.

Ascendis Pharma is a fast-growing biopharmaceutical company with locations in Denmark, Germany, and the United States.

We are applying our TransCon technology to build a leading, fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on making a meaningful difference in patients’ lives. Guided by our core values of patients, science, and passion, we use our TransCon® drug development platform to fulfill our mission of developing new and potentially best-in-class therapies to address unmet medical needs. Today, we have a growing pipeline of prodrug therapies in development, each designed to be a best-in-class therapy.

We are seeking a passionate Legal Advisor to join our growing team. As a key member of the Ascendis Pharma Group Legal team, you will play a crucial role in supporting Ascendis Pharma’s research and development (R&D) activities from early discovery through pre-clinical research, development, and clinical testing of Ascendis Pharma’s prodrug therapies.

Ascendis Pharma contracts with a broad variety of service providers and vendors such as laboratories, manufacturers, clinical research organizations (CROs), hospitals, universities, and health care professionals requiring many different types of contracts – with a wide range of legal considerations – but all with the same overall purpose of developing new and potentially best-in-class therapies to address unmet medical needs. This is an exciting opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment, collaborate with cross-functional, global teams working together to achieve extraordinary results.

You will be joining the R&D Legal team consisting of 4 colleagues based in Hellerup, Copenhagen, and will report directly to Sara Weiss, Head of R&D Legal_._ The R&D Legal team works closely with other parts of Group Legal as well as Group Compliance and other stakeholders.

Your key responsibilities will be to:

• Provide ad-hoc legal and contract support to all departments supported by the R&D Legal team, including Research and Product development, Product Supply, Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Pharmacovigilance, Connected Health and IT, depending on your experience and interests.
• Draft, review and negotiate various types of contracts to support Ascendis Pharma’s R&D, non-clinical and product development organization, e.g. confidentiality agreements, service agreements, consultancy agreements, research agreements, license agreements, collaboration agreements, material transfer agreements, etc.
• Support all aspects of the clinical trial process for global clinical trials through phases 1 to 3, e.g. by negotiating clinical trial agreements with trial sites (hospitals/universities/principal investigators) and reviewing informed consent forms.
• Draft, review and negotiate contracts with healthcare professionals, including consultancy agreements, sponsorship agreements and donation agreements.
• Support Ascendis Pharma’s data privacy efforts including by reviewing and negotiating data processing agreements.
• Work proactively with Ascendis Pharma stakeholders in Denmark as well as in our other sites primarily in the US and in Germany.
• Participate in developing effective and compliant contract management in Ascendis, including our general legal processes and template development. Be an active member of the R&D Legal team taking part in ensuring that the tasks and workload is continuously shared within the team.

Qualifications and Skills:

You hold a master’s degree in law and have a minimum of 3-4 years of work experience as in-house legal counsel or in a law firm.

Furthermore, it will be an advantage if you can tick some of the following boxes:

• Working experience in drafting, reviewing, and negotiating various complex contracts.
• Experience with IP law/handling of IP rights in contracts.
• Experience with industry specific laws and regulations relevant to the life science industry (e.g. FDA, EMA, ICH guidelines).
• Experience with or an interest in data privacy/GDPR.
• Interest in learning and working within global frameworks for interactions with Healthcare Professionals.

Key competencies:

It is highly important that you have an interest in and ambition to learn more about the legal complexities within the life science industry. You are a strong team player, analytical, and have a can-do attitude.

You possess excellent communication skills and can thrive in an informal, open environment where innovation and change are key. You are detail-oriented, when required, and have the ability to manage multiple stakeholders and priorities simultaneously.

To succeed in this role, we also expect you to be able to work both independently and as part of cross-functional teams and to be able to exercise great legal and professional judgment in your work.

You have excellent skills in English and Danish (professional level), both written and spoken, and you master Microsoft Office.

Travel: 2-5 days per year.

Office: Ascendis Pharma A/S (Headquarter), Tuborg Boulevard 12, Hellerup, Denmark

Apply now.

Applications will be evaluated when received, so please apply as soon as possible.

All applications must be submitted in English and are treated confidentially.

For more details about the position or the company, please contact Sara Weiss, Head of R&D Legal, +45 40403678 / sws@ascendispharma.com or visit out website www.ascendispharma.com