VP of Business Development
Verge Genomics
Sales & Business Development
Remote
Posted on Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Who We Are:
Technology has transformed almost every single aspect of our lives. Yet in biopharma, it still takes 12 years to develop a drug. Even today, thousands of diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people have no effective treatment. Accelerating the pace of bringing effective, new medicines to patients is one of the greatest opportunities for humanity. Our mission is to develop better drugs, faster using technology. We have built an end-to-end technology-driven drug discovery platform centered around one of the field’s largest human genomics databases in neuroscience. We use machine learning to map the complex causes of disease and turn those insights into promising drug candidates on our internal biology and chemistry platforms. We are developing drugs to treat some of the biggest medical challenges today: ALS, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Our first drug entered the clinic in 2022 as a new treatment for ALS and was discovered entirely from our platform. We have raised $175M from top tier investors (e.g. BlackRock, Eli Lilly, Merck, Section 32, Threshold Ventures, Y Combinator, etc.). We are a team of engineers, neuroscientists, and drug developers united around an audacious vision: to build the next Genentech of the digital age.
Who You Are:
We are at a critical inflection point and looking for an experienced senior business development professional to drive partnering strategy, identify, evaluate and pursue new business opportunities. This highly motivated, energetic, professional, will report to the Chief Business Officer, will direct transaction activities and build effective relationships with internal stakeholders and potential partner companies.
You will...
- Identify, evaluate, and execute business development opportunities across all stages of development.
- Define and execute Verge’s BD strategy with a focus on establishing the business case for various in-licensing and out-licensing opportunities.
- Demonstrate an open and creative approach to deal structure and partnership models to optimally achieve Verge’s pipeline and platform objectives
- Lead robust partnership and licensing processes and discussions, including deep due diligence, drafting and negotiating term sheets, working closely with the legal team on collaboration agreements, and collecting feedback from various internal stakeholders.
- Responsible for formal due diligence output and integration of internal and KOL input, and executive management review and approval.
- Collaborate with internal teams to structure optimal partnership frameworks, including with research, development, clinical, finance, IP, legal, and project management to drive partnerships forward and ensure long term success.
- Work closely with R&D and operations teams to define financial and operational requirements with clearly defined strategic rationale.
- Develop meaningful key relationships with senior management, Board, advisors and potential partner companies.
- Coaching and mentoring other members of the Verge team to ensure all are operating in their Zone of Genius
You have...
- 10 - 15 years’ experience in business development in a Pharma or Biotech setting
- The ideal candidate would have an advanced degree (PhD, MD, and/or MBA), coupled with a significant aptitude—and love for—complex scientific discussions.
- Substantial experience dealing with corporate partners, including negotiating and executing agreements across a variety of types, including licensing deals, co-development partnerships, collaborations, M&A, and strategic alliances; significant deal sheet consisting of completed buy-side as well as sell-side transactions for drug/therapeutic assets.
- Robust experience in identifying, evaluating, and executing licensing deals in biotech and/or pharma.
- Comprehensive understanding of drug discovery and development,
- Thorough understanding of biopharmaceutical industry trends and competitive landscape combined with a deep scientific understanding, business acumen
- Ability to generate and/or champion new creative high-value ideas.
- Ability to lead and inspire a high performing cross-functional team, with a demonstrated ability to forge relationships, and experience with effective conflict/issue resolution and time-critical project management .
- Ability to make tough decisions and act with clarity and decisiveness.
- Ability to work collaboratively with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders, and demonstrated ability to build effective coalitions to move deals forward .
- Ability to perform financial modeling, asset valuation, and deal analyses as part of business cases for deals
- Comfortable in high visibility situations, and ability demonstrate executive presence and gain trust and respect of R&D colleagues
- The ability to influence others with supporting information and logic.
- Highly developed organizational skills and ability to multi-task while ensuring consistent attention and prioritization of cross functional teams.
- Entrepreneurial attitude–a result oriented, hands-on, “make it happen” attitude.
- Self-motivated, personally accountable, high integrity
- Deep alignment with our values
- A passion for making an impact on patients
Help us revolutionize the way drugs are discovered & developed:
The startup nature of Verge Genomics provides multiple growth opportunities into other areas of the company. As one of the early employees at Verge, your work will have a direct impact on the foundation of a groundbreaking new drug development model.
