Clinical-Runway and Non-Dilutive Finance Leader

The mandate

The company’s cash runway appears adequate through its pivotal readout only when grant reimbursements arrive on budgeted dates, a collaboration partner accepts two development milestones and manufacturing deposits remain within the original slot plan. Clinical enrolment has shifted country mix, eligible grant costs are being coded inconsistently and a process-change discussion could bring a large CMC payment forward. The finance vice-president left after the last financing round, creating an executive gap while the board must distinguish fundable science from commitments that silently shorten strategic choice.

Within twenty days, the leader must establish a weekly trial-to-cash view connecting patient recruitment, investigator payments, CRO change orders, drug-supply batches, testing, grant claims and partner evidence. By day fifty, every receipt must carry probability, controllable actions, documentary conditions and latest useful date, while every material outflow shows cancellation, deferment and scientific consequence. The ninety-day window must produce base, delay, partial-success and trial-interruption cases plus board gates for commitments that extend beyond protected runway.

Decision rights include approving cash priorities inside the authorised plan, challenging purchase and change orders, setting grant-claim controls, assigning collaboration evidence owners and requiring scenario updates before financial commitments. The interim may stop an unsupported discretionary order and escalate activity whose funding source is unverified. Trial design, patient safety, regulatory submissions, scientific portfolio selection, capital raising, partnership terms and manufacturing quality release remain with authorised clinical, scientific, legal and board leaders.

The fixed assignment must prepare a permanent strategic-finance leader for the next clinical phase. The interim will recruit or onboard that successor, embed a study and CMC commitment register, establish grant-accounting ownership, and observe the successor lead two board forecast cycles plus one major clinical or manufacturing replan. Handover will identify milestone disputes, unreimbursed eligible costs, vendor exposure, financing dependencies, model sensitivities and decisions whose reversal could affect programme integrity.

The remit excludes medical judgement, clinical-site direction, grant lobbying, regulatory interpretation, securities solicitation, investor guidance, scientific prioritisation and unilateral vendor contract amendment. The leader cannot classify ineligible expenditure to preserve a grant claim, pressure clinical teams to compromise safety or treat unsigned collaboration acceptance as cash. Principal investigators, quality, regulatory leaders, counsel and the board retain their formal authorities.

Why this seat is open

Biotechnology runway is determined by scientific events, contractual evidence and manufacturing timing that conventional monthly forecasts simplify too aggressively. The finance departure coincides with commitments whose cancellation rights disappear well before invoices fall due. A temporary leader can impose cash evidence now, make bounded prioritisation decisions and leave the permanent team a runway model connected to clinical reality.

What you will own

• Build the weekly trial-to-cash bridge across enrolment, sites, CRO activity, laboratories, drug supply, grants and collaboration receipts.
• Catalogue commitments by programme, evidence owner, payment date, cancellation right, deferability and clinical consequence.
• Establish grant-cost eligibility, coding, claim support, submission, query response and reimbursement forecasting with accountable controls.
• Govern collaboration milestones from scientific and contractual evidence through partner review, dispute, invoice and cash collection.
• Model clinical delay, country-mix change, manufacturing rework, failed milestone and restricted financing access as connected runway cases.
• Set board gates and escalation thresholds for deposits, change orders, hiring, study expansion and commitments beyond protected cash.
• Transfer the commitment register, scenario model, evidence calendar, decision log and residual exposures through successor-led cycles.

Candidate qualifications

• Has held senior finance authority in a clinical-stage biotechnology company through trial, manufacturing or partnership inflection points.
• Understands investigator and CRO economics, CMC commitments, grant reimbursement, collaboration milestones and restricted-use funding.
• Can link operational clinical events to cash timing without making medical, regulatory or quality decisions.
• Has challenged optimistic milestone receipts and vendor forecasts while preserving constructive scientific and partner relationships.
• Brings direct board experience with runway gates, programme consequences, financing dependency and severe downside scenarios.
• Has transferred a live biotech finance operation to permanent leadership before a material data or funding event.

Non-negotiables

• Can maintain the Boston hybrid cadence and attend monthly clinical-site, manufacturing and grant-agency working sessions.
• Brings clinical-development finance depth; startup budgeting without trial, CMC and restricted-funding exposure is insufficient.
• Will not misclassify grant costs, assume unsigned milestone acceptance or compromise patient, quality or regulatory obligations for cash.
• Has no undisclosed investment, vendor, CRO, manufacturer or collaboration-partner interest that could distort programme decisions.

1. 49 words maximum. Which clinical operating event would you translate first into the weekly runway forecast?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you probability-weight a collaboration milestone whose scientific evidence is complete but acceptance remains disputed?
3. 49 words maximum. What must a permanent finance leader prove before taking ownership ahead of a pivotal readout?