Irvine-based medical device giant Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (NYSE: EW) doesn’t plan to stop investing in its portfolio of cutting-edge, life-saving products, and its team of about 30 attorneys in the U.S. and abroad is aligned with its patient-first mission.
“A very special team, fine staff, fine legal team—people who live the [Edwards] motto,” said Corporate Vice President and General Counsel Aimee Weisner. The legal team won the Business Journal’s General Counsel Awards honor in the new category of in-house legal team at a Nov. 13 ceremony at Hotel Irvine (see stories on the other winners, pages 1, 4, 6 and 8).
Patient-Centered
Edwards’ legal department is tasked with a variety of functions befitting a company its size, including intellectual property protection, litigation and investment. The complexity is precisely why Wesiner likes her job.
“I am sometimes asked the question of what’s a typical day like for me, and I haven’t had that yet,” she told the Business Journal. “What I work on changes every day. Yesterday was the board meeting, and today I am working on our investor conference that’s in early December … it keeps me from being bored.”
The device maker is Orange County’s largest public company, with a nearly $32 billion market cap and a local workforce of over 4,600. Its shares jumped more than 40% this year and traded at a 52-week high of $174 in September. It specializes in heart valves and hemodynamic monitoring with a focus on developing less-invasive transcatheter heart valve therapies.
Weisner has a team of sophisticated attorneys to help her, colleagues she described as people who respect the company’s ethic of helping patients.
She said the team keeps Edwards and shareholders in mind in everything they do.
“We are a service group … we think of our mission statement and keep that in front of us at all time.”
Weisner feels her team’s duty to the company is to be guardians.
It’s about balance, she said, “Too much of a control function, and all you say is no, [which] is not helping,” and ultimately it’s about identifying what needs to be done to help “accomplish the company’s goal and help deliver solutions.”
Record Patents
The legal department’s seven-person senior leadership team is rounded out by Keith Newburry, vice president and chief intellectual property counsel; Jay Wertheim, vice president and associate general counsel; Heather Haworth, vice president and associate general counsel; Linda Park, vice president, associate general counsel and secretary; Janet Richardson, senior director, lead regulatory and privacy counsel; and Kelly Mennes, senior manager of legal operations.
They’ve accomplished a number of achievements in recent years—including a $470 million multicurrency refinancing of existing credit facilities with a syndicate of multinational financial institutions; a $400 million share repurchase program; a number of legal victories in litigation and regulatory matters in the U.S. and around the world; and mulitple acquisitions, such as buying Israeli device maker Valtech Cardio Ltd.’s transcatheter mitral and tricuspid valve repair technology for $340 million; CardiAQ Valve Technologies Inc.’s transcatheter mitral replacement technology for $400 million; and heart medical device maker Harpoon Medical Inc. for $250 million. But Weisner is proudest of the intellectual property group.
“In the past year, we doubled the amount of patents we filed.”
Patents primarily involve innovations in transcatheter mitral and tricuspid therapies. The two valves are considered the next frontier for the less-invasive approach, which has already demonstrated success in aortic valve procedures.
Edwards has a culture of valuing research and development, investing about 15% of sales into R&D this year.
Leadership
Weisner, a former General Counsel Awards winner, said the latest honor means more to her than any personal honors. “You can’t do this alone. I am really proud of this team … and shining light on the whole team is really special,” she said.
She’s a big advocator of growth and career development.
“I feel like it’s my job to prepare people to take over my job someday,” she said.
Describing her leadership style as fair and inclusive, Weisner, who joined Edwards in 2011 from Advanced Medical Optics Inc., said she wants to foster a team dynamic that celebrates all on successes while keeping the company’s goal first and foremost.
“We are not big about ego here at Edwards. Always be authentic. Know your strengths and weaknesses, [and] don’t oversell yourself.”
But it’s OK to have fun.
Weisner said her team gets together often for informal gatherings, such as birthdays. And yes, the team celebrated its award with happy hour.
Expansion
The team extends its presence beyond the department. On top of creating a legal operations division to manage the execution of software platforms to monitor the company’s patents and patent application process, and contract templates to standardize agreements across departments, it’s put together companywide program Legal Boot Camp, a series of seminars and trainings on basic legal topics to inform various departments on legal issues, such as basic patent applications and protections.
The team plans to add a patent attorney at the company’s Irvine headquarters and an attorney in China.
Weisner said working for Edwards has been satisfying. “I joined Edwards with high expectations of what it’s like to work here, and [it’s] better than what I had originally expected.”
