Senior Product & Commercial Manager

PharosAI has been established with a mission to improve cancer care by accelerating innovation in how cancer is understood, detected and treated. Someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer every two minutes, while nearly 10 million people globally die from cancer each year.

PharosAI is addressing a major barrier to responsible healthcare AI and data-driven cancer innovation: access to clinically meaningful, high quality multimodal cancer data that is harmonised, governed and ready for use. We are building an integrated capability spanning clinical data, pathology, imaging, and molecular information to enable researchers in industry and academia to develop and test new approaches across drug discovery, clinical development, biomarker development, diagnosis and AI-enabled innovation.

PharosAI is now moving from data curation and platform development towards external partnerships and commercial application, building a sustainable venture that supports responsible innovation while maintaining robust governance, data security and appropriate use of health data.

Joining PharosAI means helping shape how a leading national cancer AI venture works with industry and academic partners to translate research and unmet needs into real world impact for patients.

PharosAI is a joint venture between King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust, backed by approximately £44 million of planned public and partner investment.

About The Role

The Senior Product & Commercial Manager will play a central role in turning that ambition into practical products, pilots and partnerships. Working with the Commercial Director and closely with PharosAI’s clinical, scientific, technical, governance and operational teams, you will take ownership of defined product, service and commercial development workstreams.

We are particularly interested in candidates with strong product development, service design or customer‑centred innovation experience who can translate complex user and customer needs into products and services that can be tested, refined and scaled. You do not need to be a traditional commercial or business development professional to be successful in this role. We equally welcome candidates who combine strong product and service development expertise with commercial experience.

You will work directly with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, techbio, medtech and healthcare AI organisations to understand their research challenges, ways of working and unmet needs. You will combine these insights with market intelligence and commercial analysis to shape products, services and propositions that are valuable to external partners, feasible for PharosAI to deliver and aligned with our wider purpose.

The post spans product and service design, customer and market discovery, commercial analysis, business development and partnership progression. You will translate complex customer requirements into viable propositions and pilots, contribute to customer workflow mapping and service design, assess commercial opportunities and help progress priority opportunities from initial engagement towards defined partnerships and delivery. Working with customers and internal teams, you will also help identify and address recurring barriers in data access and approval pathways, ensuring customer needs are translated into practical delivery requirements while maintaining appropriate governance, data security and responsible use of health data and AI.

This is a hands‑on role in an evolving venture. We are looking for someone entrepreneurial and comfortable with ambiguity, who can bring structure to complex problems, turn insight into action and maintain momentum across organisational and disciplinary boundaries. You will work with significant autonomy while helping establish the commercial capabilities and ways of working PharosAI will need as it grows.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), offered on a fixed‑term contract until 31 March 2028.

About You

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

• Experience of translating complex customer or user needs into clear product or service requirements, propositions and delivery plans, using design thinking or comparable customer‑centred methodologies to shape commercially relevant technology‑enabled solutions.
• Strong commercial awareness and analytical capability, with experience using market intelligence, competitor analysis and commercial forecasts to assess market opportunity, customer value, commercial potential, feasibility and delivery implications of new products, services and partnerships.
• Substantial relevant experience delivering product development, commercial development, business development or front end innovation activities in a consultancy, in‑house or comparable commercial environment, involving technology‑enabled products or services in healthcare, life sciences, or another complex or regulated sector.
• Experience of managing and progressing projects or workstreams involving multiple internal and external stakeholders, with a track record of delivering tangible outputs in environments where requirements, responsibilities or processes are evolving or not yet fully defined.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across commercial, clinical, scientific, technical and operational disciplines, communicate complex subjects clearly to internal and external stakeholders, and take a proactive, resourceful and delivery focused approach.
• Experience of working directly with customers, partners or senior stakeholders to understand needs, shape compelling propositions and progress opportunities towards defined products, pilots or partnerships, supported by high quality proposals, presentations, business cases or briefings.
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills, with the ability to bring structure to complex or ambiguous issues, assess priorities and risks, and exercise sound judgement on appropriate actions and escalation.
• A degree, or equivalent professional experience, in a relevant discipline such as life sciences, data science, AI/ML, technology, engineering, design, innovation or business, supported by specialist knowledge relevant to commercial or product development context.
• Experience of commercialising or bringing to market AI/ML, digital health, health data, multiomic or other data‑or‑technology‑enabled products or services, ideally within biopharma, life sciences, medtech or healthcare industry.
• Experience of B2B business development and partnership development, including progressing opportunities with complex organisational customers from initial engagement through proposition development and towards commercial agreement.
• Experience of working in a start‑up, spin‑out, joint venture or similarly entrepreneurial environment, particularly where delivery requires navigating complex governance, regulatory or institutional requirements.
• Experience of developing and testing new products or propositions through MVPs, pilots, feasibility studies or proof of concept projects, using Agile, design‑led or comparable iterative development approaches.
• A relevant postgraduate qualification, such as an MSc, MBA or PhD, or equivalent advanced professional expertise.

Personal attributes

The successful candidate is likely to be:

• Intellectually curious and able to understand new scientific, technical and commercial areas quickly
• Comfortable operating where not all information is available at the outset
• Pragmatic, resourceful and focused on achieving useful outcomes
• Able to move between strategic thinking and detailed hands on delivery
• Collaborative, open to challenge, and tenacious in identifying and resolving barriers

Additional information

The role will involve engagement with stakeholders across the PharosAI partner organisations and with external industry partners. Some travel within London and occasional wider UK travel may be required. PharosAI operates a hybrid working model, with expectation of on‑site working 2-3 days per week.

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further Information

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The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

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When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King’s guidance.

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