Project Vice President, Portfolio Management

Zealand Pharma A/S; Gladsaxe Kommune; On-site; DKK 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Zealand Pharma A/S in Denmark seeks a Project Vice President, Portfolio Management to design, implement, and operate the end-to-end R&D portfolio process. You will enable governance to fund, balance, and prioritize projects and translate strategy into transparent portfolio choices.

You will lead cross-functional due diligence on external development opportunities, develop analytics and dashboards, and deliver decision‑ready views for governance and senior leadership.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in portfolio management, R&D strategy, or program management in pharma/biotech.
• Proven track record designing and implementing portfolio processes or decision-support systems.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills for risk, value, and resource modeling.
• Experience leading cross-functional due diligence and translating assessments into recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Establish end-to-end portfolio management for R&D governance.
• Develop analytics, criteria, and scenario models for value, risk, and resource demand.
• Deliver integrated portfolio views for go/no-go discussions and prioritization.
• Build tools, dashboards, and reporting for leadership visibility.
• Lead portfolio reviews and long-range planning cycles.
• Coordinate cross-functional due diligence of external drug opportunities.

Skills

Portfolio management

R&D strategy

Project / program management

Quantitative analysis

Due diligence

Education

Advanced degree in life sciences

Job description

Does it excite you to shape where a fast-scaling biotech places its R&D bets, and do you have deep experience building and running pharmaceutical portfolio management? If this sounds like you, and you are ready to take on a broad area of responsibilities, then you could be our new colleague. Your new position As Project Vice President, Portfolio Management, you will design, implement, and maintain the portfolio management process by which Zealand Pharma Governance selects, funds, balances, and prioritizes its R&D portfolio. Working across Research and Development, you will provide objective data and trusted analysis so that Governance can see the whole portfolio clearly and make data-driven decisions. You will also lead cross-functional due diligence on external development opportunities, including in-licensing, partnerships, strategic collaborations, and acquisitions. It is a rare opportunity to build a discipline from the ground up and embed it at the heart of how Zealand advances its pipeline.

We offer exciting responsibilities:

• Establish and maintain an end-to-end portfolio management process for R&D Governance, spanning project selection, funding, prioritization, and portfolio balancing
• Develop the analytics, criteria, and scenario models that quantify project and portfolio value, risk, and resource demand to inform go/no-go and investment decisions
• Deliver integrated, decision-ready portfolio views for toll gate and prioritization discussions, translating corporate strategy into transparent portfolio choices and trade-offs
• Build the tools, dashboards, and reporting that give leadership a single, reliable view of portfolio progress, resource allocation, and risk
• Drive portfolio-level risk identification and mitigation, and lead periodic portfolio reviews and long-range planning cycles
• Lead and coordinate cross-functional due diligence of external drug development opportunities, synthesizing multidisciplinary assessments into clear recommendations and integrating outcomes into portfolio strategy and investment decisions

Your profile

• Extensive experience in portfolio management, R&D strategy, or project/program management within the pharmaceutical or biotech industry
• Proven track record of designing and implementing portfolio management processes, frameworks, or decision-support systems
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills, including portfolio valuation, risk assessment, and resource/scenario modeling
• Proven track record of leading cross-functional due diligence and translating complex assessments into portfolio and investment recommendations
• Deep understanding of the drug development lifecycle and stage-gate governance
• Advanced degree in life sciences

Your new team

You will join the Project Management Office (PMO) and report to the SVP of PMO. The role works in close partnership with the Head of PMO, Governance, Finance, Strategy, and project leaders across the portfolio.

Let's work together and make a difference

We have a strong culture built on teamwork, collaboration, and engagement across the company, and we hope you will help us make it even stronger. Working together is an important part of who we are. Whether we are developing new medicines for patients, collaborating with partners, or supporting each other as colleagues, we achieve more when we connect and share ideas. We value curiosity, openness, and the courage to think differently as we work toward new solutions and innovations.

If this sounds like a place where you would thrive, we'd love to hear from you.

We are committed to an inclusive recruitment process and welcome applications from all qualified candidates.

About Zealand Pharma A/S

Zealand Pharma A/S (Nasdaq: ZEAL) is a biotechnology company focused on advancing medicines for obesity and metabolic health. Combining more than 25 years of peptide R&D expertise with a proprietary data platform that leverages advanced data-driven and AI/ML approaches, Zealand Pharma aims to lead a new era in obesity and metabolic health. To date, more than ten Zealand Pharma-invented drug candidates have entered clinical development, of which two products have reached the market and three candidates are in late-stage development. The Company has collaborations with global pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners for research, development, and commercialization. Founded in 1998, Zealand Pharma is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a U.S. presence in Boston, Massachusetts. Learn more at www.zealandpharma.com.

#LI-Onsite

Since our founding in 1998, Zealand Pharma has built a core expertise in the discovery, design, and development of therapeutic peptides. This expertise has led to an R&D pipeline of innovative investigational candidates designed to address a broad range of disease areas. We have four therapeutic focus areas: obesity, rare diseases, chronic inflammation, and type 1 diabetes. In obesity, our peptide capabilities place us in a unique position to address a vast global health challenge and positively impact hundreds of millions of lives. Within rare diseases, we have a long-standing commitment to deliver new treatments to patients living with congenital hyperinsulinism and short bowel syndrome. For chronic inflammatory diseases, we are progressing peptide programs focused on high-profile targets shown to be difficult to address with small molecules and antibodies. For type 1 diabetes, we aspire to change the management of this disease. Our strategy is to pursue global co-development and commercialization partnerships that complement and extend our capabilities across the value chain to deliver new peptide therapies to people who need them.