Chief Executive Officer — Cell-Therapy Programme

The mandate

A late-stage cell-therapy developer is preparing for the most consequential eighteen months in its history. Its lead autologous programme has produced a credible response signal in a difficult-to-treat blood cancer and is advancing towards its next key data readout. The science remains fundable; the operating model around it must now earn the same confidence.

The board has secured a conditional financing commitment that extends runway beyond the next data cut only if three milestones are met: the first remediated cohort is dosed safely, manufacturing release time falls below 21 days, and a strategic partner receives a diligence-ready expansion dataset. At the present burn rate, there is little room for parallel priorities. The Chief Executive Officer must decide which indication deserves capital, which research programmes should be partnered or stopped, and whether commercial-scale manufacturing should remain substantially internal.

This is not a founder-eviction brief. The scientific founder will continue as Chief Scientific Adviser and retain a board seat. The next CEO is being appointed because the organisation now requires a leader who can connect clinical evidence, patient safety, manufacturing economics and financing into one operating cadence. The board wants candour rather than theatre: risks surfaced early, decisions recorded, and promises to patients, investigators and investors made from the same set of facts.

The enterprise employs approximately 700 people across the Boston research and corporate centre, a US cell-processing facility and European clinical operations. The new CEO will lead a business with a current enterprise value in the high hundreds of millions of US dollars, an annual cash deployment plan exceeding USD 300 million and active studies across North America and Western Europe. Relocation to Boston is expected; regular presence at the processing site and major investigator centres is integral to the role.

Why this seat is open

The current CEO, who led the company from Series B through its first registrational design, has agreed with the board to move into a non-executive director role after the transition. The succession was accelerated when the clinical hold demonstrated that a research-led management structure was no longer adequate for a pivotal-stage company. A short overlap is planned, with authority transferring unambiguously on the start date.

What you will own

• Chair the benefit-risk forum for the lead programme and hold final executive accountability for patient safety, protocol discipline and the quality of submissions made to US and European regulators.
• Allocate an annual research, clinical and manufacturing budget above USD 300 million across the lead indication, two earlier assets and platform work; stop or partner programmes that cannot clear explicit evidence thresholds.
• Convert the hold-remediation plan into a controlled restart across more than 30 clinical sites, with common training, escalation and adverse-event review practices.
• Set the manufacturing strategy for patient-specific product, including capacity reservation, automation priorities, external-network qualification and the investment case for the company’s US processing facility.
• Lead financing and strategic-partnership discussions, presenting a defensible runway plan and giving counterparties access to a reconciled clinical, CMC and intellectual-property data room.
• Direct an organisation of roughly 700 employees and material specialist partners, strengthening the clinical operations, quality, technical operations and programme-leadership benches without diluting scientific accountability.
• Establish the launch-readiness choices that cannot wait for approval: treatment-centre segmentation, vein-to-vein logistics, reimbursement evidence and the boundaries between owned and partner capabilities.
• Serve as the principal external representative with patients, investigators, regulators and long-horizon investors while protecting confidentiality around individual cases and emerging data.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Reconfirm the safety governance model, test every assumption behind the clinical restart, and agree a single integrated plan covering enrolment, assay comparability, manufacturing slots and cash. Make explicit decisions on the two programmes competing for the same vector capacity. Rebuild direct dialogue with principal investigators and appoint any missing quality or clinical leaders.
• Months 4–9: Dose the remediated cohort under the revised controls; reduce avoidable manufacturing deviations and bring median release time towards 21 days. Complete the partner data room, run the strategic process without distracting programme teams, and take a fully costed platform-versus-asset recommendation to the board.
• Months 10–12: Deliver the scheduled clinical data cut with traceable case adjudication, close either a financing or partnership transaction that funds the chosen plan, and lock the capacity pathway for a potential launch. Publish the following year’s portfolio gates and succession coverage for every critical executive role.

What the board will measure

• Safe restart of enrolment with no overdue serious-adverse-event reporting and no material finding attributable to the remediation design.
• Median vein-to-vein release cycle below 21 days, accompanied by a sustained fall in batch deviations and out-of-specification investigations.
• Cash runway extended beyond 24 months through financing, partnership economics or disciplined portfolio reduction, without relying on an undisclosed bridge assumption.
• A board-approved indication and platform allocation, with stopped work actually closed and redeployed rather than left as an unfunded shadow programme.
• Investigator confidence, measured through site activation, eligible-patient conversion and documented resolution times for clinical questions.
• A credible leadership bench in clinical development, quality and technical operations, with emergency succession and retention risks reviewed quarterly.

The person

You are currently a biotechnology CEO, a divisional president with full development accountability, or a chief operating or medical executive who has already carried enterprise-level capital decisions. Your career includes at least 28 years across innovative biopharma or cell and gene therapy. You have led a P&L or enterprise investment perimeter of at least USD 250 million and an organisation of no fewer than 300 employees; advisory exposure alone will not meet the brief.

The board is open to leaders from advanced biologics, gene therapy or complex oncology development where patient-level manufacturing and constrained clinical populations create comparable operating demands. You will have taken a programme through a regulatory interruption, material safety signal or similarly high-stakes reset and can explain what changed in governance as a result. Direct experience preparing a biologics licence application or equivalent late-stage dossier is strongly preferred.

Scientific literacy is essential, but the differentiator is judgement under incomplete evidence. You can interrogate a response curve without pretending to be the treating physician, challenge a release-assay timeline without bypassing quality, and tell investors what remains unknown. You have personally closed a material financing, licensing or co-development transaction and understand the obligations created after the headline announcement.

The successful candidate will be based in Boston. International candidates are welcome where US regulatory and capital-markets experience is current and relocation is realistic. This mandate will not suit an executive seeking a largely remote chairing role; patients, manufacturing teams and clinical investigators require visible, informed leadership.

Compensation and terms

The indicative base salary is USD 500,000–750,000, accompanied by an annual performance incentive and meaningful long-term participation aligned to clinical, financing and enterprise-value milestones. The appointment is permanent, subject to board approval, customary background checks and conflict review. Terms will recognise any verifiable equity forfeiture. The board expects a practical start plan and will consider an orderly notice period rather than encouraging a breach of existing obligations.

Confidentiality

The client’s identity and programme-level non-public information will be disclosed only after mutual interest has been established and a confidentiality agreement completed. Candidates should not approach investigators, employees or investors to infer the company from this brief.

Each response must contain no more than 49 words.