Business Operations Specialist

QP Group; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

QP Group in Ireland is seeking a seasoned partnerships professional to own the data and R&D partnership lifecycle end to end. You will source data partnerships, manage approvals, and deliver collaborative projects across the data & R&D engines, while supporting commercial inputs in partnership with founders.

You will build an operating system for this function, ensuring timelines are met and communications are clear.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in pharma, CRO, clinical research, biobanking, tech transfer, or academic research operations.
• Working familiarity with omics data and preclinical research language.

Responsibilities

• Source new data partnerships: data vendors, biobanks, academic groups, funded consortia — active at the top of the funnel, not just warm leads.
• Own approvals and contracting: NDAs, ethics submissions, institutional approvals, data transfer, technical and IP agreements.
• Manage research collaboration deliverables end to end, including grant timelines and attached publications.
• Coordinate biological sample logistics and chain of custody across biobanks, CROs and wet labs.
• Own timelines across both partnership engines, translating signed commitments into dated technical obligations.
• Protect technical capacity — engineers and scientists shouldn't chase paperwork.
• Build the operating system this function doesn't yet have: trackers, templates, reporting cadences.

Skills

Data partnerships

Contracting

Project delivery

Scientific communication

Education

BSc/MSc/PhD in biological sciences or adjacent field

Job description

Location: Ireland (Hybrid — 3 days/week on-site)

Employment type: Full-time, Permanent

Reports to: CEO and CTO

About us

We build human disease foundation models — in-silico representations of human biology accurate enough that a pharma partner can rehearse how a drug will behave before it reaches a clinical trial. Our multi-omic architecture is validated against CRISPR-perturbed organoid experiments, with the long-term goal of displacing animal models in preclinical development. We're focused on immuno-oncology, CNS and immunology, with live deployments in two disease areas and a third partnership closing.

We closed a multi-million-euro pre-seed round in late 2025. Our team of seven is deliberately senior and technical, with leadership backgrounds spanning big pharma foundation-model research and computational biology.

The role

We run two partnership engines — commercial, and data & R&D — both currently spread across the founders. You'll own the data and R&D partnership lifecycle end to end: sourcing, approvals, contracting and delivery, plus the operational layer that keeps both engines accountable to their commitments. On the commercial side, you'll support the middle of the funnel — approvals, documentation, technical inputs — while deal ownership stays with the founders and commercial team.

There's no operations function to inherit. You'll build it while running it.

What you'll do

• Source new data partnerships: data vendors, biobanks, academic groups, funded consortia — active at the top of the funnel, not just picking up warm leads.
• Own approvals and contracting: NDAs, ethics submissions, institutional approvals, data transfer, technical and IP agreements.
• Manage research collaboration deliverables end to end, including grant timelines and attached publications.
• Coordinate biological sample logistics and chain of custody across biobanks, CROs and wet labs.
• Own timelines across both partnership engines, translating signed commitments into dated technical obligations.
• Protect technical capacity — engineers and scientists shouldn't chase paperwork.
• Build the operating system this function doesn't yet have: trackers, templates, reporting cadences.

What you'll bring

• 5+ years in pharma, CRO, clinical research, biobanking, tech transfer, or academic research operations.
• BSc, MSc or PhD in biological sciences or adjacent field.
• Track record of end-to-end delivery — agreement through to delivered outcome, owning both timeline and relationship.
• Experience building something from nothing: a function, process, team or programme.
• Working familiarity with omics data and preclinical research language.

Nice to have

scientific/grant writing, sample logistics, research contracting (DTAs/MTAs/licensing), CRO experience, startup experience.

Ways of working

• Hybrid, 3 days/week on-site in Ireland
• Weekly cadence of problems and fixes
• Heavy on written communication
• Small, senior team

Screening call → conversation with CEO/CTO on partnerships and delivery → short written exercise (2–3 hrs) → walkthrough → a day with the team.