Chief Strategy Officer — Biologics Platform

The mandate

A biologics company is advancing a portfolio of candidates, each drawing on different parts of its discovery engine. The organisation now needs to demonstrate that its platform advantage repeats across targets and modalities, and to articulate that case clearly to investors and partners.

Management faces an immediate temptation to replace the lost milestone with more activity. Research teams have proposed additional targets, business development sees licensing interest around one capability, and investors are encouraging a rapid new lead selection. The board wants a strategy reset before resources fragment. It needs to know which technical claims remain supported, which assets can provide the fastest meaningful proof, and whether the company should continue as an integrated developer, become a focused platform partner or pursue a staged hybrid.

The Chief Strategy Officer will own that reset and the operating choices that follow. The remit spans corporate and portfolio strategy, competitive and market insight, programme economics, partnering logic, board decision support and strategic implementation. The role is not a communications buffer for disappointing news. The CSO must ensure that future claims, financing needs and resource decisions are grounded in evidence from multiple programmes rather than one replacement narrative.

Approximately 250 employees and material partners sit within the wider strategic perimeter in Cambridge and international relationships. This urgent, unplanned appointment is on site and reports to the Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor. The board expects the CSO to work directly with scientific and technical leaders, respecting their authority while requiring assumptions to be explicit and comparable.

Why this seat is open

The strategy function was previously small and oriented towards transactions and board planning. The lead-candidate termination exposed the absence of an executive accountable for connecting platform evidence, portfolio choices and corporate model. The board has created the position rather than assigning the reset to an external adviser or asking the scientific founder to arbitrate capital trade-offs alone.

What you will own

• Reassess the platform thesis capability by capability, separating evidence demonstrated across programmes from results dependent on one target, assay or team.
• Lead the board choice among integrated development, platform partnering and staged hybrid models, including capital, capability, timing, rights and valuation consequences.
• Establish portfolio gates covering biological rationale, molecule quality, developability, translational evidence, competitive differentiation and cost to the next decision.
• Build programme and capability economics for an annual strategic investment perimeter above GBP 120 million, with cash and talent consequences visible for every choice.
• Design the partnering strategy, identifying which capabilities or assets can be licensed without surrendering the evidence and rights required to prove the core platform.
• Create competitive insight around modalities, targets, development routes and partner demand without allowing isolated competitor announcements to redirect the portfolio.
• Chair or shape portfolio governance so decisions close, resources move and stopped programmes do not persist through small undisclosed commitments.
• Build a strategy team able to work with research, development, finance and transactions and to maintain a reliable record of assumptions and triggers.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Complete a fact base on the terminated candidate, remaining programmes and platform capabilities. Identify claims that must be retired or qualified, set interim spending boundaries and agree board criteria for the future corporate model. Select no replacement lead until developability and comparative evidence meet the new gate.
• Months 4–9: Secure the board’s model and portfolio decision, stop or partner non-core work and concentrate teams on the chosen proof points. Rebuild the financing and partnership narrative around auditable evidence. Launch any external process with pre-agreed rights, valuation and data boundaries rather than using market interest to define strategy.
• Months 10–12: Deliver the first capability proof or candidate decision under the new standards, demonstrate resource release from discontinued work and publish a three-year evidence and capital roadmap. Establish quarterly assumption reviews and show that scientific, technical and financial plans reconcile without hidden fallback programmes.

What the board will measure

• A board-approved corporate model and portfolio supported by explicit evidence, capital, capability and downside cases.
• Retirement or qualification of claims no longer supported after the candidate failure, with consistent use across investor, partner and internal materials.
• Portfolio resources concentrated on selected proof points and visibly removed from work that failed or sits outside the chosen model.
• Developability and molecule-quality evidence incorporated before future lead selection, reducing late discovery of dose or manufacturing limitations.
• Partnership choices that fund or validate the platform while preserving capabilities and rights designated essential to long-term value.
• Forecast and strategic milestones revised promptly when assumptions change, without substituting activity measures for lost evidence.

The person

You are a Chief Strategy Officer, SVP of strategy and portfolio, business-development leader with portfolio authority or experienced biotechnology general manager. Across 22–28 years, you have reset strategy after a programme failure, platform challenge or material change in financing conditions. You have governed at least GBP 100 million of annual portfolio investment and influenced an organisation of 200 or more employees.

You understand discovery and developability sufficiently to distinguish a target failure, molecule failure and platform failure. You can challenge broad claims without oversimplifying scientific evidence and can build decision gates with research and technical leaders. You have personally stopped, partnered or sequenced programmes and can show where people and budget moved afterwards.

Relevant backgrounds include biologics, antibody or protein engineering, drug-discovery platforms and adjacent modality businesses. The board will consider a strong strategy leader from innovative biopharma if platform economics and early-development decisions are familiar. Transaction experience is required, but a career measured mainly by announced deals will not meet the brief.

The role is based on site in Cambridge. International candidates may qualify with a practical relocation plan and recent UK or European biotechnology experience. The CSO must communicate credibly with investors and directors while remaining useful to scientists whose work determines whether the strategy is true.

Compensation and terms

The indicative base salary is GBP 250,000–340,000, plus annual incentive and long-term participation. Performance will be measured through decision quality, portfolio concentration, evidence delivery, financing resilience and preservation of strategic rights—not transaction count. This is a permanent appointment with board exposure. Relocation and substantiated forfeited awards may be considered.

Confidentiality

The client, terminated candidate, platform evidence and live partnering discussions are confidential. Details will be shared only after relevance is established and the required agreement is complete. Candidates must not use scientific publications, patents or market conversations to identify the company.

Each response must contain no more than 49 words.