Gunnar Sachs is a “Clifford Chance lifer,” he says with not a hint of false modesty. He has helped build the law firm’s international life sciences and health care business since joining the company almost two decades ago.
He has been a partner at the firm for almost a decade, and so far has spent his entire 19-year career at Clifford Chance. Proof were it needed that loyalty to one company does not preclude qualification as an In Vivo Rising Leader: more important is how individuals apply their art to developing the life sciences industry through innovative contributions.
Sachs has a number of major legal projects underway in what has been a busy 12 months for the industry sector groups he covers at the firm. Among other responsibilities, he sits on the leadership teams of three Clifford Chance focus groups: global healthcare & life sciences, tech and industrials.
His headline responsibilities include co-leading the firm’s dedicated teams on healthtech and chemicals industry, in which roles he advises big pharma, medtech and chemical companies. It is a large and complicated range of responsibilities “and never boring,” he said.
New Work In The Post Election Period
In early 2025, the potential legal territory got even more interesting when all eyes were focused on the German federal election and the subsequent activity targeted at forming a center-right led coalition.
The CDU-CSU union parties are traditionally business-friendly. The radical change to a conservative government could bring new business opportunities for legal firms, but lawyers tend to thrive on change.
Sachs expects that Germany will witness a new drive for deregulation and efforts to cut over-regulation and the administrative burden on the industry.
“Deregulation for our clients means there will be new opportunities and more room for innovation,” Sachs said. Deregulation would allow companies to broach highly new ways of approaching the market, in particular for healthtech and healthcare products. “When there are changes in the legal landscape, it always becomes interesting for lawyers,” he said, “as our clients need to acquaint themselves with the new environment.”
And Clifford Chance keeps its eye on the target. “We are often involved in pioneering and greenfield high-volume projects. That’s exactly what we are specialists in. And that’s where we are particularly good – in accompanying clients as legal landscapes change.”
That is how Sachs represents Clifford Chance’s professional position in the market.
Health Care Clients From Traditional And Emerging Industries
“In our health care and healthtech group, we advise on new and highly innovative health solutions from the classic, traditional industry, and, on the other side, IT and tech lines, showing them how to gain a foothold in health care,” he told In Vivo.
Sachs’ cumulative years of professional law firm experience at Clifford Chance amply pave the way for such projects.
Parallel to his work as a lawyer, Sachs had the opportunity in the early 2010s to assume roles as deputy head of the German legal departments of two US-headquartered globally leading groups: one in biopharmaceuticals and the other in the multichannel retail space. He held these roles for more than two years. “This gave me very valuable insights into the relevant markets from the inhouse perspective of typical clients we advise,” he said.
An Advocate For Innovation
His experience came to the fore in spring 2025, when he was arguing the corner for deregulation at an invitation-only healthtech conference in Berlin. His view was that the outgoing German government had adopted a number of too far-reaching and over restrictive rules in setting the framework for selected healthtech products in the digital healthcare and data transfer, digital apps (the DiGA program) and cloud services space.
Sachs said that this approach had been driven by too narrow a perspective that took into account solely data privacy concerns, while and leaving aside considerations about how the innovative industry would be impacted by it.
The upshot was that Sachs was invited to pitch for a major healthtech and data project launched by a government-sponsored institution and supported by federal institutions and federal and state ministries. The simple goal: to develop a healthtech landscape using a more liberal but still compliant approach.
“We’re in quite a strong position to steer the deregulation brief and can help clients predict how the regulatory landscape might change – and even help reshape the legal landscape.”
Gunnar Sachs
“They wanted someone with a proactive approach to look into ongoing projects, tell them about the do’s, don’ts and opportunities, and show how current legal boundaries and specific regulations could be scrutinized by the courts,” Sachs explained.
“We’re in quite a strong position to steer the deregulation brief and can help clients predict how the regulatory landscape might change – and even help reshape the legal landscape,” Sachs said. Amongst many other things, his work also involves preparation for Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) proceedings or complaints to the European Commission.
Clifford Chance has been successfully building its EU health care practice for some decades to the point where its is one of the strongest in the European Union. It has dozens of expert lawyers like Sachs in its core team. As is evident, Sachs himself likes to focus on EU market regulation.
“And I love my perfectly matching roles,” said Sachs, referring to his leadership functions in the steerco committees of the global health care and industrials groups.
Cross Border Projects And Input Into Chemicals Legislation
Sachs’ remit extends to EU chemicals legislation. The chemicals sector is expected to grow significantly in the next few years with the investor/finance landscape looking at the space more intensively. “A lot of carve-outs are happening and divestments underway, and we are involved in many of highly complex projects in the industry.”
His prime role has always been to advise on huge, high-volume projects – including in the M&A and regulatory spaces. These typically cover multiple countries or result in litigation in a number of national courts, possibly going right up to the EU courts.
One major ongoing project is a commission from a leading pharma group to extend the marketing protection of a market-leading drug, using legal rationale and argumentation. It is a multi-country effort involving outreach to multi-stakeholder groups.
“We do similar projects time and again in medtech, pharma and chemicals.” They all need dedicated lawyers and broad skill ranges. There may only be a few really huge projects per year, but winning a pitch for them entails many people working on the brief for months – if not years, Sachs said.
Typical Aspirational Projects
Another major ongoing project resulted from a whistleblower at a CRO informing on pharma products being manufactured using non-authorized compositions. Here, Sachs’ international team is advising on a range of workstreams, including a stop on distribution, potential product recalls and withdrawals, working with national and EU authorities, preparing for variations, doing internal investigations into the CRO, and considering and implementing claims proceedings against responsible parties. The project includes lawyers in 14 countries.
Not all projects led by Sachs are always so urgent, but they are nearly always cross-border, high-volume, highly innovative projects requiring big teams.
Many of Sachs’ medtech briefs revolve around artificial intelligence (AI) themes, including a recent project to advise an e-commerce platform on rolling out a cloud-based AI commerce solution for nursing homes and hospitals worldwide.
Another, for a medtech client, was focused on the question of rolling out a robot based on AI that carries out high-precision heart surgery in many countries with the surgeon controlling the procedure from a remote location. This cross-border project has needed to take into account a broad range of legal aspects across data privacy, IT law, IP law, telemedicine law, medical devices regulatory law, reimbursement rules, social law and even ethical and professional standards for physicians. “We looked into each and every detail in each relevant national regime to check if it was feasible.”
Sachs’ work in heading major sector briefs on product launches and transactional projects often calls for Clifford Chance teams to do work never done before in the space, requiring innovative solutions to keep businesses running.
It seems a lot to take on for a keen family man. The role of a life science partner in a “Magic Circle” law firm would appear to preclude any free time for the “work-life balance.” But not a bit of it. Sachs practices what he preaches and counts on his colleagues to emulate him.
It’s A Cultural Thing
“When I joined the firm, I had chances to join other Magic Circle and globally leading companies, but I felt Clifford Chance was particularly open-minded. It felt like family to some extent, and I still believe this almost 20 years later.”
One of the key drivers of success is to be in a team where everyone fits, he said. “When I look to expand my team, it is very important that we get people of that mind. We spend a lot of time with each other. It’s very important you are with people that you like.”
As an employer, Clifford Chance was recently accorded a “5-star, Excellent” ranking in Germany’s azur100-Top Arbeitgeber Ranking 2025, based on how it treats its staff, using 360 degree reviews by those staff and clients.
“Don’t just focus on being successful in your professional career. Try to balance it with something that is as exciting as your job.”
Gunnar Sachs
Sachs himself is designated as one of the go-to legal health care experts in Europe and has recently been shortlisted as “German Healthcare Lawyer of the Year” 2025 by The Legal500, which assesses the strengths of law firms across over 150 jurisdictions.
But it’s not all about work and no play, especially when you are a passionate trumpet player, have founded a trad jazz band and traveled the world with your music.
“We’ve kept the jazz band going, me and my friends from schooldays when we all started in a renowned classic symphony orchestra.
“I am a lawyer by heart, and I love my job, but it is important to also have a life outside your career,” Sachs said, imparting a valuable piece of advice … just this once for free: “Don’t just focus on being successful in your professional career. Try to balance it with something that is as exciting as your job.”