Senior Legal Counsel

About the role

As the first in-house Legal Counsel, you will lead the legal work on licensing and strategic partnership deals from term sheet to signing. You will serve as a trusted partner to the leadership team, covering IP, patents, operational contracts, data, AI compliance, and corporate matters. This role offers the opportunity to shape legal processes and strategy within a fast-growing drug invention company.

Responsibilities

• Lead the legal work on licensing and collaboration deals, drafting and negotiating agreements from term sheet to signing.
• Work with BD, Finance and Leadership to turn commercial goals into contract terms, while protecting AQEMIA's platform and other programs.
• Support IP protection and patent-related decisions with scientific teams and external patent counsel.
• Draft and negotiate NDAs, MTAs, CRO, vendor, software and data agreements, including contractual questions on data use and AI.
• Address GDPR, regulatory, compliance and dispute-related matters with specialist support where needed, and support corporate and fundraising matters in coordination with Finance and external advisors.
• Own templates and approval workflows, highlight key contract obligations and deadlines to relevant teams, and manage external counsel.

Required skills

• Licensing
• IP law
• Contract negotiation
• Life sciences law
• Corporate law

Nice to have

• TechBio
• AI law
• Data privacy
• Business development
• French

Qualifications

• Law degree or equivalent professional legal qualification
• 5+ years of legal experience, including time at a law firm in a life sciences practice

About the Company

AQEMIA is a drug invention company dedicated to creating entirely new medicines to address major unmet medical needs using a proprietary molecule-invention platform that combines physics-based modeling and generative AI. The company is part of the French Tech 40 and France 2030, with a multidisciplinary team based in Paris and London.