Senior Strategic Advisor, Pharma
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Key skills for this role
About the Role
Quantafold, a quantum-inspired drug discovery start-up, seeks a senior strategic advisor to work directly with the founding team over 6 months. The role involves operational deployment, go-to-market strategy, and partnership structuring.
Key Skills for This Role
Responsibilities
- Help translate strategic direction into an executable operating plan across a small, fast moving team
- Guide go to market strategy, sequencing, positioning, and key commercial decisions
- Help prioritize what to build now, what to defer, and where operating rigor matters most
- Shape and stress test the strategic plan as scientific, market, and commercial signals evolve
- Validate scientific approach and benchmarking methodology
- Structure first commercial partnerships, CRO relationships, and licensing conversations
- Provide introductions to pharma and biotech decision makers
- Guide building out the senior team as the company scales
Requirements
- C suite executive experience (CEO, President, CSO, CMO, or Head of BD/Licensing) at a large pharma or top tier biotech
- Direct experience with protein based therapeutics (peptides and proteins)
- Hands on involvement in end to end drug discovery, development, and FDA approval process
- Participation in at least two programs that achieved FDA approval
- Experience managing external partnerships including CRO and biopharma collaborations
- Ability to operate above a single function (commercial strategy, org building, or P&L exposure)
Full Job Posting
About Us
- Quantafold is a quantum inspired drug discovery start up headquartered in the UAE. We have developed a breakthrough physics based engine to disrupt de novo protein target modelling. Our engine takes any protein structure and generates 1,000+ amino acid hit sequences against the target in minutes — r
About The Role
- We are looking for a senior strategic advisor to work directly with the founding team over the next 6 months — a period in which the company will complete its first scientific validation, sign its first paying clients, and make the foundational decisions that shape everything that follows. This is a
Key Responsibilities
- Operational deployment — helping translate strategic direction into an executable plan across a small, fast moving team
- Go to market strategy — guiding sequencing, positioning, and key commercial decisions as we move from discovery service to integrated pharma company
- Prioritization — helping decide what to build now, what to defer, and where operating rigor matters most
- Roadmap and planning — shaping and stress testing the strategic plan as scientific, market, and commercial signals evolve
- Validation of our scientific approach and benchmarking methodology, bringing an outside, technically fluent eye
- Structuring of our first commercial partnerships, CRO relationships, and licensing conversations, drawing on direct deal making experience
- Introductions to pharma and biotech decision makers — at programme level, not just brand recognition
- Guidance on building out the senior team as the company scales beyond its first 12 months
Minimum Qualifications
- C suite executive experience — CEO, President, CSO, CMO, or Head of BD/Licensing — at a large, well known pharmaceutical or top tier biotech company
- Direct experience with protein based therapeutics — peptides and proteins — rather than small molecule drug development
- Clear, hands on involvement in end to end drug discovery, development, and the FDA approval process
- Ideally, participation in at least two programs that successfully achieved FDA approval
- Experience managing external partnerships, including CRO and biopharma collaborations, with a strong understanding of the broader industry ecosystem
- A demonstrated ability to operate above a single function — commercial strategy, org building, or P&L exposure, not purely a research or regulatory lens
Preferred Qualifications
- An elite scientific pedigree — a top tier MD/PhD, an HHMI investigatorship, a named professorship, or a track record of pioneering an approach that changed how the field does drug discovery
- Genuine fluency in the technical/computational side of modern drug discovery — genomics, structural biology, AI or data driven platforms — not just traditional wet lab science or regulatory process
- Experience operating in both a large, process heavy organization and a smaller, faster moving one
- A personal track record of negotiating or sponsoring a partnership, licensing deal, or M&A transaction — not just approving one
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