The practice at a glance
JW van Zyl Inc takes responsibility for the South African legal workstream around regulated life-sciences products, programmes and transactions.
- Sectors
- Pharmaceutical · Biotechnology · Clinical research: sponsors, CROs, sites · Medical devices & diagnostics · Funded health programmes · Healthcare investors & manufacturers
- Engagements
- Clinical-research agreements · Distribution, supply & licensing · M&A & legal due diligence · Market-entry & operating structures · Grants, consortia & IP · Outside-counsel capacity
- Regulatory & governance
- SAHPRA · POPIA / PAIA · Research ethics & governance · Company & director governance · A Legal Practice Council–regulated practice
The regulated product lifecycle
Legal questions do not arrive one at a time.
Regulatory status governs what may be contracted. Clinical development determines who holds the data and the samples. Market entry settles the corporate structure. A transaction requires all of it to be understood together.
The firm is organised around the lifecycle in which those questions arise.
- Discovery
- Development
- Clinical
- Approval
- Supply
- Commercialisation
- Transaction
- Post-market
How clients instruct the firm
Three ways to instruct the firm.
Global and regional life-sciences teams frequently reach a point where a South African agreement, legal structure or regulatory responsibility must be resolved locally.
JW van Zyl Inc provides that local legal capacity on a defined basis.
- Entering South Africa
- Establishing, registering, structuring or commercialising regulated operations in South Africa.
- South African Programme Counsel
- One owned legal workstream for a defined regulated programme: clinical development, launch, supply, a collaboration or a transaction.
- Continuing South African Counsel
- Continuing access to South African legal capacity across regulated operations, under a recurring mandate.
Core practice areas
What clients engage the firm to do.
Clinical Research & Development
Resolve the contracts that delay study activation, payment and site performance.
02Regulatory & Market Access
Get the regulatory structure right before the commercial terms are fixed.
03Commercial & Technology
Sign commercial terms the operation can actually perform.
04Corporate, M&A & Life-Sciences Transactions
Structure the transaction around the risk that does not transfer.
Across every capability
Transactional IP · Data & privacy · Compliance · Governance. Where a matter requires patent, tax, competition, foreign-law or advocacy input, the firm defines the instruction and integrates that specialist’s advice into the legal workstream it is running.
How the work is delivered
Outside Counsel for Life Sciences
Continuing access to the firm's capabilities without appointing additional permanent internal counsel.
A way of instructing the firm, not a fifth area of law.
Representative matters
Selected relevant experience
Anonymised matters, comparable to the work clients instruct, each labelled with its source. Full situation-and-work detail on the Experience page.
- Clinical-research contracting
- Prior professional experience
The principal
Wilhelm van Zyl
Director & Attorney
Every matter is led personally, by an attorney whose background spans the clinical-research and pharmaceutical industry and South African commercial law, the same ground the firm advises on.
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