Director Preclinical Strategy and Portfolio, Paedriatic and Rare Cancers

The Director of Preclinical Strategy and Portfolio, Paediatric and Rare Cancers is a key scientific leader responsible for shaping, directing, and delivering LifeArc’s preclinical research strategy for developing therapies for paediatric and rare cancers, in line with LifeArc’s mission. This role is accountable for developing the strategy and leading delivery of internal, collaborative, and funded projects and programmes, within a wider portfolio of drug discovery and diagnostics development programs. The Director will work closely with other senior leaders to drive, align, and integrate relevant activities.

The Director will ensure high scientific rigour, programme momentum, timely milestone delivery, and robust decision-making to progress assets through early development and towards IND-enabling studies. As part of an adaptive, dynamic, and matrixed research environment, the Director will provide scientific and strategic leadership of the preclinical paediatric and rare cancers portfolio, ensuring alignment with the broader LifeArc preclinical strategy. The role will also involve line management of Project Managers and Scientists, actively driving and delivering portfolios aligned with LifeArc’s strategic goals.

Key responsibilities include:

• Overseeing and coordinating the strategic and tactical focus of the paediatric and rare cancers preclinical portfolio, ensuring efficient execution across multiple programmes, including collaborative programmes such as the C‑Further consortium.
• Working with multidisciplinary and cross‑functional teams to create and lead programme plans with clear milestones, decision points, data requirements, and go/no‑go criteria.
• Ensuring milestones are delivered on time, within budget, and at the level of scientific quality required to support robust scientific and operational interrogation.

Strategic Leadership

• Leading drug discovery and translational programmes in relevant therapeutic areas.
• Contributing to strategic planning, prioritisation, and decision‑making.
• Ensuring alignment of scientific priorities, resource allocation, and programme progression with organisational strategy and patient‑impact goals.

Scientific Excellence & Translational Strategy

• Providing expert scientific guidance to progress assets through early discovery toward IND‑enabling studies.
• Establishing and overseeing translational strategies, including mechanism of action work, biomarker development, post‑validation progression, and asset optimisation with a line of sight to clinical studies.
• Championing best practices in preclinical research and ensuring scientific rigour, innovation, and high‑quality data generation.
• Actively following current progress in the field, scanning the external landscape for scientific, clinical and technical developments, to identify and exploit new capabilities.

Governance, Committees & External Engagement

• Serving on internal and external scientific review committees, providing expert evaluation of data packages, milestone readiness, and budget utilisation.
• Supporting due diligence activities for potential assets, collaborations, partnerships, and platform expansion opportunities.
• Building and maintaining strong networks with external scientific partners, collaborators, and funding bodies.
• Representing LifeArc on relevant external committees and acting as an external ambassador to promote LifeArc’s preclinical projects and activities.

Leadership, People Development & Culture

• Line‑managing scientific staff, setting clear goals, supporting professional development, and fostering high performance.
• Promoting an inclusive, collaborative culture focused on excellence, continuous learning, and delivery mindset.

Essential Experience Required

• Extensive and preferably current or recent experience leading multi‑disciplinary oncology drug discovery projects in a Pharma or Biotech environment, from initiation through to late preclinical/IND stage.
• Firm operational knowledge of later stage preclinical‑and clinical‑development pathways to expedite patient impact.
• Proven record of scientific leadership, delivery of complex research programmes, and commitment to innovation, high-quality and rigour.
• Substantial experience leading, managing and resourcing portfolios with multiple stakeholders, including external partners (e.g. academia, industry) and as part of collaborations or consortia.
• An experienced line manager, encompassing performance and goal setting and the successful development of team members.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with proven ability to work with senior R&D leaders, Board and Executive level.
• A respected leader in oncology drug discovery with a mature network in the UK and internationally.
• In‑depth knowledge of paediatric and/or rare cancers is highly desirable.
• Preferably experience across multiple therapeutic modalities (e.g., biologics, small molecules, cell therapy).

Education

• PhD in a relevant life science discipline, preferably with additional relevant post‑doctoral research experience.

Skills & Abilities

• Sharing knowledge of, and contributing to, current scientific literature and developments within area of expertise.
• Ability to inspire direct reports and cross‑functional teams, influence stakeholders, and drive strategic initiatives.
• Deep scientific excellence, critical and analytical thinking, experienced problem solver.
• Skilled at building relationships and fostering cross‑functional teamwork in a matrix environment.
• Self‑awareness and a high level of professionalism, a can‑do attitude and with consistent track record of high impact delivery.
• Ability to align scientific priorities with organisational goals and anticipate future needs.
• Exceptional planning skills and execution of projects with a delivery mindset and excellent attention to detail.

About us

LifeArc is a not‑for‑profit life science organisation, leading the way for change in rare diseases in the UK and supporting promising initiatives in global health. We seek out research in areas of unmet need that has great potential, providing support to help it become breakthroughs that change lives.

What we can offer you

Focused on finding life‑changing solutions for underserved patients, our people thrive in an inclusive, and supportive environment that prioritises their health and wellbeing. Our multidisciplinary approach guarantees our people growth opportunities, while our culture of innovation and collaboration drives the impact we make delivering on our purpose of ‘putting patients at the centre of everything we do’. LifeArc is committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible and developing a culture that values differences.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we guarantee an interview to candidates with a disability or long‑term health condition who meet the essential criteria for the role. Please note that in certain situations, such as high volumes of applications, it may not be practical to interview all eligible candidates. In these cases, we may need to select those who best meet the essential criteria.

Salary will be determined by qualifications and experience along with other exceptional benefits. Because we understand everyone has different requirements, our flexible benefits allow you to choose those which are important to you. Our pension scheme offers employer contributions of up to 12%, private health insurance, and annual leave of 31 days PLUS bank holidays.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds, for example, are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At LifeArc we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so whatever your background or lived experience, if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. Our top priority is finding the best candidate, and you may be just right for this or other roles.