Director IT Business Partner R&D in Cambridge

Nxera Pharma is a technology powered biopharma company, in pursuit of new speciality medicines to improve the lives of patients with unmet needs globally. Nxera employs over 350 talented people at key locations in Tokyo and Osaka (Japan), London and Cambridge (UK), Basel (Switzerland) and Seoul (South Korea) and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker: 4565). In addition to several products being commercialised in Japan, we are advancing an extensive pipeline of active programs from discovery through to late clinical stage internally and in partnership with leading pharma and biotech companies including Lilly, AbbVie, Neurocrine, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Centessa.

This pipeline is focused on addressing major unmet needs in some of the fastest-growing areas of medicine across metabolic disorders, CNS, GI and immunology, and rare diseases, and leverages the power of our unique and industry leading GPCR-targeted structure-based drug discovery “NxWaveTM” platform to provide a sustainable source of high quality candidates. In Cambridge UK, we have built outstanding R&D capabilities at our state-of-the-art Granta Park facility to advance multiple programs from pre-clinical through to early clinical development. In Tokyo, our expert teams are dedicated to late-stage development (Ph 2/3) and innovative commercialisation/go-to-market approaches.

Our Mission To accelerate the development of life-changing medicines, by investing in science and technology.

Our Vision To lead the next era of medicine. From Japan, for Japan, and the world.

Our Values

• Patients, carers, families, and physicians come first
• Innovation and teamwork inspire success
• Focus on top priorities where we can make a difference
• Speed and agility of decision-making
• Operational excellence

We are passionate about improving the quality of life and health of people around the world and believe we can achieve our mission through providing a supportive, motivational, and empowering environment for employees. We are proud to offer a collaborative, diverse and inclusive working environment that considers your individual needs and believes in maintaining a sustainable work-life balance. You will be welcomed by a team of colleagues with decades of accumulated experience in their areas of expertise, happy to help you develop your own skills in a highly collaborative environment and who are keen to provide guidance and support in your personal and career development plans.

Position Overview: The Director, IT Business Partner for R&D serves as the strategic role responsible for aligning IT initiatives with the scientific organisation. This role ensures that our UK R&D functions have the right technology platforms, data systems, and partnerships to accelerate drug discovery and innovation. Operating as a trusted advisor, this role drives the R&D IT roadmap, manages business demand, oversees key applications and vendors, and ensures alignment between technology capabilities, data strategy, and scientific priorities.

A firm understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Large Language Model (LLM) technologies is essential, as this role will partner closely with our Computational Sciences teams to enable next-generation scientific innovation. The ideal candidate is a proactive leader with strong technical expertise, deep business process understanding, and exceptional communication skills to bridge the gap between technology and business needs.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS

• Strategic Partnership and Roadmap Development: Act as the senior IT partner to R&D leadership, translating scientific goals into practical technology and data strategies. Own the R&D IT roadmap, ensuring investments support research, discovery, and data science priorities.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Relationship Management: Build strong partnerships with scientific and business stakeholders to ensure IT solutions meet R&D needs. Identify opportunities to leverage the broader IT and data ecosystem to support scientific objectives. Serve as the main escalation point for R&D IT issues and drive continuous improvement across systems. Collaborate with Legal, Procurement, and Compliance to ensure vendor governance, data protection, and risk management standards are met.
• Technology Planning and Delivery: Oversee core scientific systems such as ELN, compound registration, data analytics tools, and computational platforms, ensuring they are secure, compliant, and fit for scientific workflows. Work with research and computational science teams to evaluate and adopt new technologies that improve productivity and scientific insight. Manage the full lifecycle of R&D applications, including upgrades, validation, and retirement. Lead IT projects from initiation to delivery, ensuring alignment with scope, budget, and timelines. Manage external software vendors and IT service providers that support R&D systems. Partner with cloud and data platform providers to ensure computational resources meet R&D needs (e.g., GPU clusters, data storage, or AI model hosting environments). Lead on technology & vendor selection, contracts, SLAs, renewals, and issue escalation to maintain high-quality service and value.
• Operations, Process, Compliance & Continuous Improvement: Ensure robust operational support for R&D systems, including incident management, change control, and user training. Identify and implement improvements that streamline scientific workflows and optimise technology use. Ensure all R&D systems meet regulatory, quality, and data security requirements. Maintain policies and procedures that support consistent and efficient IT operations across R&D.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Life Sciences, or a related discipline.
• Professional experience: 8+ years of IT experience in the biopharma or biotech industry, with significant exposure to the full spectrum of R&D. Proven experience engaging with R&D functions and scientific users at senior levels.
• Skillset: Technical skills: Versed in the pharmaceutical industry practices and regulations and its applicability to R&D. Strong knowledge of common R&D technologies such as LIMS, ELN (Dotmatics), Live Design, compound management, data collection, organization, storage, analysis/visualization, and instrument control software. Demonstrated experience engaging with R&D and scientific functions, including partnerships with AI, ML, or computational chemistry teams. Highly competent in understanding utilization of Linux and HPC including security and containerisation. Experience with managing execution of Computer Systems Validation procedures and processes in line with 2022 FDA guidance promoting a ‘risk based’ approach to validation. Entrepreneurial and strategic thinking to partner with business leaders to define the strategies for R&D. Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; capable of influencing at scientific and executive levels and developing strong relationships with complex customer groups. Analytical and communication abilities to create and align IT plans with the business objectives. Strong analytical and project management skills coupled with implementation expertise. Lean thinking capable to drive process simplicity throughout the organization by leveraging technology solutions. Ability to understand market trends in technology ecosystem within R&D domain to enable the creation of new and/or leveraging existing relationships with technology providers to partner together. Fluent English; conversational Japanese is a plus.

Other information

What’s in it for you?

• State-of-the-art R&D centre located in the heart of the Cambridge science cluster
• Competitive compensation package including discretionary cash bonuses
• Eligible for grants of Restricted Stock Units
• 26 days annual leave in addition to public holidays plus the option to purchase an additional 5 days each year
• Employer contribution to pension
• Private Medical Insurance for employees and family and a cash plan for dental and optical reimbursement
• Health and wellbeing benefits including a subsidised individual gym membership
• Income protection to cover long term absences due to ill health
• Group Death in Service equal to 4x basic annual salary

At Nxera Pharma, we are passionate about delivering life-changing medicines to patients. We foster an open and welcoming environment where everyone can bring their authentic self to work, harnessing our individual strengths to succeed together. We value our culture rooted in a diverse mix of minds, backgrounds, and abilities, with a deep sense of belonging. For us, inclusiveness is a reflex, not an initiative. We are achieving this through a consistent commitment to fairness, equal opportunity, and equity. Applications should include a CV and covering letter, providing a short description of the background of your interest in the role.