Chief Financial Officer – Transformation — Biologics Platform

The mandate

A Cambridge biologics platform has signed two discovery collaborations and is negotiating a third that could be larger than either existing agreement. The scientific proposition is strong: a proprietary protein-engineering method has shortened the route from target brief to development candidate. The economics are harder to see. Each contract defines reimbursable work, background intellectual property, success milestones and cost-sharing differently; internal teams use the same laboratories across partnered and wholly owned programmes, and finance cannot yet state with confidence which activities create margin and which consume option value.

The next transaction will determine how the company is perceived. A broad alliance could fund the platform for several years but encumber targets the board may wish to retain. A narrower licence preserves upside yet leaves the company carrying more development risk. Meanwhile, the existing operating plan assumes a future milestone that is scientifically plausible but neither controllable nor bankable. The board has called for a transformation of finance before committing to the new partnership or launching another proprietary programme.

The Chief Financial Officer – Transformation will redesign the economics and controls of the business while serving as a full executive partner. The remit combines group finance with deal architecture, portfolio analytics, grant and tax-credit oversight, laboratory-capacity economics, and preparation for a possible private financing within eighteen months. It is a role for an operator who can follow molecules, rights and obligations through a contract and into the ledger—not a reporting specialist added after commercial terms are agreed.

The company has approximately 300 employees and collaborators in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and the United States. Its Cambridge base houses core research, computational design and enabling functions; preclinical work and selected manufacturing activities sit with external partners. The successful executive will work principally on site in Cambridge, reporting to the Chief Executive and the relevant board committee.

Why this seat is open

The role is a planned replacement. The present CFO has completed the company’s institutionalisation after its last funding round and will retire following an agreed handover. The board is deliberately changing the specification: the successor must retain control and fiduciary rigour while moving finance upstream into collaboration design, portfolio choices and the commercial use of platform capacity.

What you will own

• Rebuild the group plan around individual partnered and proprietary programmes, showing full-time-equivalent use, laboratory capacity, external spend, milestone probability and residual rights.
• Lead the financial and governance architecture of the proposed alliance, including research funding, cost recharges, opt-in points, milestones, royalties, exclusivity, termination assistance and audit rights.
• Establish a defensible transfer-pricing and intellectual-property framework across UK research, overseas collaborations and any future special-purpose or financing entities.
• Control an annual investment perimeter exceeding GBP 150 million and lead a finance, procurement and programme-analytics organisation supporting approximately 300 employees.
• Replace milestone-dependent liquidity assumptions with base, delayed and failure cases; maintain a board-agreed minimum cash threshold and executable financing contingencies.
• Resolve inconsistencies in time recording, project coding and partner invoicing so reimbursable research is billed completely without allocating proprietary discovery cost to a collaborator.
• Direct audit, tax, treasury, insurance and statutory reporting, including R&D tax relief and grant claims that can withstand technical and regulatory scrutiny.
• Equip portfolio leaders to compare the economic value of retaining, licensing, pausing or terminating each programme at named scientific decision points.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Trace every material collaboration obligation from signed contract to work plan, invoice and forecast. Reconcile platform capacity, identify unrecovered partner work and restate the liquidity scenarios without unsigned milestones. Agree negotiating boundaries for the prospective alliance before the counterparty receives detailed economics.
• Months 4–9: Implement programme and capacity reporting, settle legacy billing or interpretation issues with existing partners, and lead the commercial model for the new transaction. Redesign delegated authorities so scientific teams can move quickly inside approved envelopes while changes to target rights, scope or cost trigger executive review.
• Months 10–12: Close or decisively decline the alliance on terms consistent with the board’s retained-rights strategy. Deliver a financing-ready long-range plan, complete the first clean cycle of programme profitability reporting, and leave a finance bench capable of supporting diligence without suspending normal operations.

What the board will measure

• A reconciled view of margin, cash consumption and remaining obligations for every signed collaboration, with no material partner invoice older than the contractual timetable.
• Explicit board approval of the rights and economics to retain before the next alliance is signed, and no unplanned encumbrance of priority targets.
• Forecast variance held within agreed tolerances for controllable operating spend, with milestone receipts excluded from base liquidity until earned.
• Recovery of eligible partner-funded work and R&D incentives without audit qualification, double charging or damage to collaborator trust.
• A quantified portfolio decision for each proprietary programme, including capital required to the next evidence point and a pre-agreed stop or partner route.
• Successful completion of statutory audit and investor diligence with one consistent source for contracts, forecasts, ownership rights and reported results.

The person

You are presently a CFO, deputy CFO, divisional finance director or head of finance and business development in a biologics, platform biotechnology, life-sciences tools or research-services organisation. Your 22–28 years of experience include material responsibility for collaboration contracts and R&D economics, not solely commercial product finance. You have controlled at least GBP 120 million of annual spend or equivalent and led a finance or multidisciplinary team of no fewer than 40.

You have personally read, modelled and negotiated complex research or licence agreements. You understand how exclusivity, field definitions, reserved targets, opt-ins, cost sharing, termination and change control affect both valuation and day-to-day behaviour. You can distinguish accounting presentation from underlying economics and can explain both to scientists, lawyers and board members without losing the decision in technical language.

The company will consider candidates from biologics, drug-discovery platforms, contract research, advanced diagnostics or technology-enabled life sciences where intellectual property and shared technical capacity drive value. Experience financing a private UK company, handling cross-border tax and preparing for institutional diligence is important. Prior public-company service is welcome but is not a substitute for hands-on transformation.

This is a Cambridge-based appointment with regular in-person work alongside research and deal teams. A reasonable weekly commute may be considered during transition, but permanent remote leadership is not. The preferred candidate is calm with ambiguity, exact about contractual facts and able to stop a seductive transaction when its long-tail constraints exceed its headline funding.

Compensation and terms

The role carries a base salary of GBP 250,000–340,000, an annual incentive and long-term participation. Performance measures will combine control quality, usable programme economics, liquidity resilience and the quality—not merely the completion—of any partnership. The permanent appointment reports to the Chief Executive with direct board-committee access. Treatment of proven forfeited incentives will be discussed individually, and the company will respect an enforceable notice period.

Confidentiality

The client’s name, platform details and counterparties are confidential. They will be shared in stages after suitability has been established and the required agreement signed. Candidates must not contact possible collaborators or use the scenario to speculate publicly about the organisation.

Each response must contain no more than 49 words.