Head of Partnerships, Chronic & Rare Respiratory Diseases - Maternity Cover

Location: London, Stevenage or Edinburgh

Job Type: Full-time, 12 month rolling contract

Are you passionate about making life science life changing and delivering impact for patients? We want to hear from you.

About the role: As Head of Partnerships for the CRRD Translational Challenge, you will develop and lead LifeArc’s external partnering strategy to advance the CRDD Translational Challenge. Reporting to the Director of Business Development and working as part of the TC leadership team, you’ll drive strategic collaborations that deliver patient impact, societal benefit, and sustainable revenue opportunities. This role combines commercial acumen with purpose-driven deal-making. The role will collaborate with other teams in Business Development, in particular the Licensing team and identify opportunities for LifeArc to wholly-own with a view to increase out-licensing. This role will involve line management of BD Manager(s) and participation in matrix-leadership of teams including Alliance Management, Funding Team, Translational Scientists and other functions that support CRDD programmes. The role will include some international travel and attendance at conferences and events to represent LifeArc.

Key responsibilities:

• Develop and implement external partnering strategies to deliver the Therapeutic Centre’s objectives, identifying and securing optimal collaborators and partnerships.
• Represent LifeArc externally as an ambassador, building awareness of strategic priorities and fostering relationships with key organisations to assess partnership opportunities.
• Provide commercial and strategic insights into internal projects, leveraging external market intelligence to support evaluation of new opportunities and key decisions.
• Lead business case development and negotiations for selected collaboration opportunities, ensuring successful transactions aligned with LifeArc’s targets and governance processes.
• Drive commercial evaluations and revenue opportunities, supported by internal and external resources, to maximise value creation.
• Partner with LifeArc’s science organisation to deliver the R&D activities, internally or in collaboration, that align with TC objectives and maximise revenue generation.
• Integrate with colleagues in Alliance Management and Funding Framework to progress opportunities through appropriate governance and due process.
• Collaborate across functions (Licensing, Alliance Management, Funding, and R&D teams) to deliver deal-related projects and progress opportunities through appropriate governance.
• Promote best practices and ED&I principles, embedding a learning mindset across the Business Development team and contributing to organisational success.

Essential experience required:

• Significant business development experience in a life sciences organisation.
• Team leadership experience, and experience in delivering business development strategy.
• Experience leading contract negotiations.
• Stakeholder management experience, with the ability to drive senior level decision making.
• Networking experience and strong ability to build relationships and act as the face of LifeArc.
• Track record and knowledge of respiratory diseases.

Education:

• Life Sciences degree (PhD or MBA or other equivalent postgraduate qualification).

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. We all have potential. At LifeArc, you’ll discover what you can really do with it.