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Yuliya Gevrenova

Yuliya Gevrenova is an associate in the Life Sciences Practice Group. She advises clients across a wide range of regulatory, compliance and procedural issues, focusing on EU and Public International law.

Yuliya assists multinational companies in the food, feed, pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors to navigate complicated legal frameworks, including:

International Health law, including the impact of the WHO Pandemic treaty, the application of the International Health Regulations and the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework.
International Environmental law, including issues of access and benefit sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya protocol.
Food law, including labelling and claims; coordination with national authorities during withdrawals and recalls; special rules on flavorings and enzymes, as well as GMOs and NGTs.
Chemicals (REACH, plastics, pollutants, etc.) and Environmental regulations (CSDDD, Wastewater Directive, green washing, etc.).
Animal health issues, including animal testing, transportation and feed.

As part of her pro bono practice, Yuliya advises on complex litigation strategies aimed at defending the rights of people with mental disabilities.

Contact:Read more about Yuliya GevrenovaEmail

On January 17th, 2026, the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (“BBNJ”) Agreement, also known as the “High Seas Treaty”, entered into force.  For the first time, companies that use marine genetic resources (“MGRs”) and digital sequence information (“DSI”) originating from areas beyond national jurisdiction may be required to share monetary and non-monetary benefits at a global level.

This marks a significant expansion of access and benefit-sharing (“ABS”) obligations for companies.  Until now, under the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”) and its Nagoya Protocol, ABS obligations applied only to genetic resources originating within national jurisdictions.  The BBNJ Agreement fundamentally changes this landscape: companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, cosmetics, food and feed that rely on marine-derived compounds, microorganisms or genetic data may now face new reporting and annual payment obligations.

Companies should not assume a long transition period.  Implementation is already advancing.  The European Commission has published a draft Directive (“draft EU Directive”), and the United Kingdom adopted the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Act 2026 (“UK Act”) on February 12th, 2026. Companies should therefore assess now whether their R&D pipelines, data use practices, or product portfolios fall within scope.

In this blog, we examine how the BBNJ Agreement and its EU and UK implementation could affect companies using MGRs and DSI, and identify the key compliance risks and strategic questions for in-house counsel and senior management.

Continue Reading Navigating the new UN High Seas Treaty: Key Compliance Risks for Life Sciences Companies

October 12, 2024, marks the 10-year anniversary of entry into force of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair Benefit-Sharing from their Utilization (“ABS”). This additional treaty to the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”) has now been ratified by 142 countries. Over the past decade, Nagoya Protocol has resulted in the mushrooming of more than one-hundred thirty (130+) national ABS laws around the globe. All this time the Covington life sciences team has stood by its pharmaceutical, food and biotech clients to navigate this ever-more challenging Harlequin’s costume that is the global ABS legal regime. 

In this Client Alert we share lessons learned from our 10+ years of experience on ABS in the life sciences sector.[1] As an anniversary edition, this document is a long read. For ease of navigation, we have structured it as a Q&A. 

We first recall the basics of ABS. Then we cover key questions from clients such as e.g. compliance best practices and enforcement trends. Finally, we look to challenges in the near-future, focusing on emerging ABS regimes such as the global mechanism on benefit-sharing from Digital Sequence Information (“DSI”), the genetic resource disclosure requirement when filing patents under a new World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) treaty, the new “pathogen” ABS provisions of the World Health Organization (“WHO”) Pandemic Treaty, the High Seas Treaty on marine genetic resources, and last but not least, the new corporate due diligence obligations under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (“CS3D”).

If you have any questions or would like a meeting concerning the material discussed in this Client Alert, please contact our partner Bart Van Vooren at bvanvooren@cov.com.

The ABC of ABS

1. What is the purpose of the Nagoya Protocol?

The Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 recognizes the sovereignty of countries over biological resources within their jurisdiction. The CBD has three main objectives: (1) the conservation of biodiversity, (2) its sustainable use, and (3) “the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the arising from the utilization of genetic resources.” Although there are 196 Parties to the CBD, by 2014 very few countries had implemented rules on ABS. The Nagoya Protocol was therefore negotiated as a supplemental treaty to achieve the third objective of the CBD. It does so by empowering countries to impose prior authorization (Access) and payment requirements (Benefit-Sharing) on companies that commercialize products or processes that utilize biological materials. This supposedly creates a financial resources and incentive for countries to protect biodiversity.

Continue Reading The Nagoya Protocol at Its 10th Anniversary: Lessons Learned and New Challenges from ‘Access and Benefit-Sharing’

As part of the EU’s General Pharmaceutical Legislation amendment proposal, published on 26 April 2023 (“theProposal”), the European Commission (“Commission”) has introduced a series of measures aimed at securing the supply of critical medicinal products across the EU and at preventing shortages.  In particular, there are new obligations for Marketing Authorization Holders (“MAH”) and competent authorities are given more power to better monitor and control the availability of medicines on the market.

As we have discussed previously, these measures aim to tackle the broader problem of security and robustness of pharmaceutical supply chains, which became especially prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In this blog, we briefly explore some of the changes introduced by the Proposal.

Preventing Supply Disruptions and Shortages

Critical Medicinal Products

The Proposal expands the monitoring of “critical medicinal products” beyond emergency situations.  Now, medicinal products “for which insufficient supply results in serious harm or risk of serious harm to patients” will be included in the “Union list of critical medicinal products” (“Union list”), and the Commission will have the power to implement measures such as stockpiling of active pharmaceutical ingredients or finished dosage forms.  

Continue Reading EU Pharma Legislation Review Series: Supply Security and Shortages Control