Head of Business Development, Therapeutics

Outpost Bio; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Private medical & dental

Pension

Life insurance

Cycle to Work

25 days holiday + birthday off + year-

Winter break

Home office stipend

Conference costs

Learning budget

Job summary

Outpost Bio is hiring a Head of Business Development, Therapeutics to turn microbiome capabilities into paid, decision-relevant work with biotech and pharma partners. You will source and close deals, shape studies, and own the commercial process from first conversation through contracts and delivery.

This hands-on role requires scientific credibility, a track record of originating complex deals, and the ability to build the commercial system that a future team can scale.

Qualifications

• Significant business development or commercial experience in biotech, pharma, CRO, or scientific platform business.
• Ability to originate and close complex technical work.
• Understanding of how drug development budgets move across stages.
• Credible scientifically; can translate science into buyer value without overstating evidence.

Responsibilities

• Define strategy and offer; scope and price studies for drug programs with microbiome evidence.
• Originate and close asset-level programs; manage proposals, pricing, negotiation and contracting.
• Translate science into buyer value; define assets and evidence needed with customers.
• Deliver and scale value; launch paid studies and capture outcomes for expansion.
• Build a repeatable commercial operating system: qualification, forecasting, and data rights.

Skills

Business development

Partnerships

Contract negotiation

Cross-functional collaboration

Sales strategy

Education

Biology or Pharmacology degree

Job description

Compensation: £80,000 to £100,000 per year + performance-based bonus

Application Deadline: 19 October 2026

Department: Partnerships

Location: London

Compensation: £80,000 to £100,000 per year + performance-based bonus

Description

Drug developers test compounds extensively, but the microbiome is still a major experimental blind spot. It can transform a molecule, alter exposure, and cause differential responses across populations, yet these effects are rarely examined systematically while a program can still act on them.

Outpost Bio is building that missing layer. We combine high-throughput experiments in human-derived microbial communities with machine learning to help drug-development teams understand microbiome-compound interactions earlier and more rigorously.

We're hiring a Head of Business Development, Therapeutics to turn that capability into paid, decision-relevant work with biotech and pharma partners. You'll identify the drug programs where Outpost can matter, shape studies around real development decisions, and own the commercial process from first conversation through contract, delivery, and expansion.

This is a hands-on builder role. You will source and close deals yourself, work directly with our scientists, and create the commercial system that a future team can scale.

We're hiring one person for this role, and they can be based in either London or Boston.

Here is our timeline for hiring this role

• Now until October 19th: Accepting applications
• October 26th: Planned start for interviews

Responsibilities

• Define the strategy and offer. Choose the initial customer focus (indication, mechanism of action, modality, etc.), then turn Outpost's scientific capabilities into a clearly scoped, priced study for drug programs where microbiome evidence can inform a live development decision.
• Originate and close asset-level programs. Build relationships with biotech and pharma leaders across program development, translational science, DMPK, pharmacology, safety, and business development. Own qualification, proposals, pricing, negotiation, procurement, and contracting.
• Translate science into buyer value. Work with customers to define the asset, biological question, decision to be made, and evidence needed. Bring Outpost scientists into the conversation where scientific trust is won, and ensure every commercial commitment stays inside the platform's validated capabilities.
• Deliver and scale value for customers. Partner with Science, Lab, Data, Legal, and Finance to launch and govern paid studies. Secure written acceptance, document how the result informed the customer's program, and turn successful work into expansions, references, and case studies where permitted.
• Build the commercial operating system. Establish a rigorous, repeatable approach to qualification, pipeline management, forecasting, pricing, contracts, data rights, delivery handoff, account growth, and unit economics. Capture what each program teaches us so the next engagement becomes faster and more valuable.

Your background

• You have significant business development or commercial experience in biotech, pharma, a CRO, or another scientific platform business, with a track record of personally originating and closing complex technical work.
• You understand how drug-development teams make decisions and how budgets move across discovery, preclinical, translational, and early clinical functions.
• You are scientifically credible. You can understand a customer's asset and development question, work productively with technical teams, and communicate value without overstating the evidence.
• You can turn an emerging capability into a bounded, priced offer while learning from the market. You are comfortable selling before every process, proof point, and piece of collateral is finished.
• You operate with precision and urgency in a small, resource-constrained team. You keep a rigorous pipeline, make trade-offs explicit, and close the loop on commitments.
• Nice to have: experience commercializing biomarker, multi-omic, microbiome, translational, DMPK, pharmacology, safety, or preclinical research services; an established network across biotech and pharma program leaders, translational scientists, and R&D decision-makers in the US and Europe; experience building a life-sciences commercial function, territory, or service line from its first customers; experience with multi-stakeholder sales, procurement, legal review, intellectual property, and data-rights negotiations in life sciences; experience structuring platform partnerships that balance near-term revenue with data rights, reusable learning, intellectual property, and long-term strategic value; a scientific or technical degree in biology, pharmacology, chemistry, bioinformatics, or a related field.

Why Join Outpost Bio?

• You’ll own real equity in what you build. We offer meaningful stock options because we believe the people building this company should share in what it becomes. We want teammates who think like owners, and we structure compensation to reflect that.
• Outstanding benefits. Private medical and dental with Bupa from day one, paid by Outpost, and dependents covered at 50%. Pension with a 3% employer contribution. Life insurance, income protection and critical illness cover, all employer paid. Cycle to Work scheme. 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, your birthday off, and a paid winter break between Christmas Eve and New Year.
• An ML Lab-in-the-Loop. Your work feeds directly into Outpost's AI platform, and the platform feeds back into the next experiment. The loop between the wet lab, the data and the models runs in days, not years, and you'll iterate inside it whichever side you sit on.
• How we work. Expected in the office Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with flexible hours around a 10am to 4pm core and up to two weeks a year working from anywhere. Home office stipend and company computer. We cover conference costs and want you presenting your work, and every quarter you get a budget for drinks or coffee to learn from peers at other companies.
• Small team, outsized reach. You're joining a small founding team backed by top-tier investors with deep connections across AI and bio. The science you do here will directly shape how pharma and consumer companies understand molecule and microbiome interactions.