EVP – Strategy and Portfolio — Cell-Therapy Programme

The mandate

A cell-therapy company has generated an encouraging Phase II response in a narrowly defined patient group for whom treatment options are limited. The data are meaningful but not yet a registrational strategy. Follow-up remains immature, the external-control dataset has important differences in prior therapy, and manufacturing variability complicates interpretation of durability. Regulators have offered two credible routes: a faster single-arm submission with substantial confirmatory obligations, or a randomised study that takes longer but may support a broader label and more durable reimbursement case.

The choice cannot be made by clinical development alone. It determines vector and processing capacity, cash requirements, site selection, evidence generation, launch sequencing and the capital available to two adjacent indications. Each function has prepared a defensible plan, but their assumptions do not reconcile. The board wants one enterprise recommendation that states the uncertainties plainly, values speed and label quality without false precision, and shows what work will stop under each scenario.

The EVP – Strategy and Portfolio will lead that recommendation and then own the cadence that keeps it true. This executive will sit between science and resource allocation: challenging indication logic, aligning clinical and manufacturing gates, quantifying strategic options, and creating a portfolio forum with authority to fund, partner, pause or terminate work. The role is not a corporate-development seat measured by presentations or deal count. It carries direct influence over an approximately USD 180 million annual portfolio and the work of roughly 250 employees and key external partners.

Based in Boston, the EVP will report to the Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor and work closely with clinical, regulatory, technical operations, commercial and finance leaders. International travel will include regulator meetings, investigator centres and selected manufacturing partners. The board expects a leader who can preserve debate while ending ambiguity once a decision has been made.

Why this seat is open

This is a newly created role. Strategy has until now been divided among the Chief Executive, programme teams and finance, with no executive accountable for reconciling evidence plans and capital allocation across the portfolio. The pivotal decision exposed the cost of that gap. The board has approved the appointment before finalising the trial route so the incoming executive shapes, rather than inherits, the commitment.

What you will own

• Lead the cross-functional recommendation on single-arm versus randomised development, integrating regulatory probability, patient access, evidence quality, manufacturing readiness, time, cost and confirmatory obligations.
• Govern an approximately USD 180 million annual development portfolio, with named evidence and value gates for the lead programme, adjacent indications and enabling platform work.
• Build a common scenario model linking enrolment, event timing, manufacturing yield, site capacity, regulatory interactions, reimbursement evidence and runway.
• Chair the portfolio forum and make resource consequences explicit when programmes miss criteria; ensure paused work releases people, capacity and external commitments.
• Develop partner, regional-rights and financing alternatives that preserve control of the pivotal path while reducing cash-at-risk where strategically appropriate.
• Direct competitive and treatment-landscape intelligence, distinguishing facts that should change the development plan from noise that merely prompts executive anxiety.
• Create a board decision record that captures assumptions, dissent, trigger points and pre-authorised responses as new safety, efficacy or manufacturing evidence appears.
• Build and lead a strategy and portfolio team capable of rigorous analysis while maintaining trusted working relationships with scientists and programme executives.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Reconcile the competing pivotal proposals, validate the external-control and manufacturing assumptions, and agree evaluation criteria with the board before recommending a route. Establish immediate portfolio gates and stop new commitments that presume an undecided trial design. Clarify the regulator-engagement plan and identify evidence that could genuinely reverse the choice.
• Months 4–9: Secure board approval and translate the selected route into one integrated development and capital plan. Renegotiate capacity and vendor commitments, reprioritise adjacent indications and launch the portfolio forum. Prepare a partnering or financing option with economics tied to the chosen evidence plan rather than a generic corporate runway target.
• Months 10–12: Demonstrate execution against the first pivotal start-up milestones, complete a formal assumption review after new follow-up data, and enforce the agreed response to any trigger breach. Deliver a three-year portfolio map showing which indications will be owned, partnered, sequenced or closed and what capabilities each requires.

What the board will measure

• A regulator-informed pivotal decision reached by the agreed date, with clinical, manufacturing, commercial and financial assumptions reconciled in one board paper.
• Start-up of the selected study within the approved cost and site-activation envelope, without hidden reliance on uncontracted capacity or unsigned financing.
• Portfolio spend concentrated on approved evidence priorities, with capital and specialists visibly redeployed from programmes that fail their gates.
• Reduction in major forecast differences between clinical enrolment, manufacturing demand and cash planning across successive quarterly reviews.
• Preservation of strategic rights and programme control in any partnership or financing arrangement, assessed against boundaries approved before outreach.
• A decision culture in which material dissent is documented before commitment and execution proceeds without recurring attempts to reopen settled choices absent new evidence.

The person

You are currently an EVP or SVP of strategy, portfolio, development operations or a therapeutic-area business in biotechnology or innovative biopharma. Across 22–28 years, you have shaped at least one registrational pathway where speed, evidence quality and confirmatory risk pulled in different directions. You have influenced or controlled a minimum USD 150 million development portfolio and led a team or cross-functional organisation of at least 100 people.

You can work with clinical data at the level required for a strategic decision: endpoints, maturity, bias, external controls, patient selection and the practical meaning of uncertainty. You also understand manufacturing as a development constraint rather than a downstream service, and can connect trial design to capacity, release performance and cost of goods. Direct participation in regulator interactions is essential.

Suitable backgrounds include cell and gene therapy, oncology biologics, rare disease or another modality in which small populations and complex production make evidence choices unusually consequential. Corporate strategists without programme accountability will not be competitive. The board seeks someone who has stopped or materially rescaled a scientifically attractive programme and can explain the governance, human consequences and subsequent use of resources.

The role is based in Boston with purposeful international travel. Candidates outside the United States may be considered if they have current US development experience and a credible relocation plan. The EVP must communicate precisely with directors, but will earn authority through useful decisions with programme teams rather than proximity to the boardroom.

Compensation and terms

Expected base pay is USD 360,000–480,000, accompanied by an annual incentive and long-term participation. Measures will be tied to decision quality, pivotal readiness, capital concentration and portfolio value rather than the number of analyses or transactions completed. This is a permanent executive appointment with board exposure. Final terms may recognise demonstrable forfeited equity and an orderly release from current obligations.

Confidentiality

The company, therapy and unpublished data will be identified only after the search team confirms relevance and an appropriate confidentiality agreement is in force. Candidates must not contact possible investigators or use public trial records to attempt to reverse-identify the client.

Each response must contain no more than 49 words.