Senior Director of Business Development Strategy, Formation Bio
$300-372k
+ Equity + Competitive Compensaion
3-5 days a week in office
Powering hyper-efficient, tech-driven drug development
Job no longer available
Powering hyper-efficient, tech-driven drug development
101-200 employees
Job no longer available
$300-372k
+ Equity + Competitive Compensaion
3-5 days a week in office
101-200 employees
Company mission
To bring new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently.
Role
Who you are
- The ideal candidate for this role will have significant experience in strategy consulting, business development, banking, venture capital, or in-house corporate strategy, coupled with hands-on operating experience in the biotech or pharmaceutical industry
- You should have a proven track record of leading strategic efforts and working cross-functionally to drive business success
- Advanced degree (PhD, MBA, MD, or equivalent)
- Significant experience in strategy plus business development, M&A or investing within consulting, investment banking, venture capital, or an internal corporate strategy team
- Significant hands-on operating experience in the biotech or pharmaceutical industry, with exposure to strategy, business development, or operations
- Proven ability to develop market maps, technology roadmaps, or other strategic frameworks to guide corporate decision-making
- Strong understanding of the biotech/pharma landscape, including market trends, emerging technologies, and deal-making structures
- Excellent collaboration skills with experience working cross-functionally with teams like Business Development, Search & Evaluation, and Technology
- Experience managing portfolios, conducting diligence, and identifying strategic partnerships or alliances
- Demonstrated interest and expertise in the application of AI/technology in life sciences
What the job involves
- The Senior Director of Business Development Strategy will play a pivotal role in driving Formation Bio’s strategic efforts across the Business Development function
- An independent operator acting as the right-hand person to the Chief Business Officer (CBO), this individual will lead the identification of high-value opportunity areas, collaborate with cross-functional leaders, and drive the creation of market and technology roadmaps
- This role will also be instrumental in helping to develop the company’s AI capabilities for strategic planning, diligence and managing existing portfolio assets
- Acting as the right-hand to the Chief Business Officer (CBO), supporting key strategic initiatives across the Business Development function
- Collaborating with the Head of Search & Evaluation to identify promising opportunity areas and themes
- Leading market mapping and competitive landscaping to help guide strategic investments and focus areas
- Partnering with the technology team to build and enhance AI-powered diligence capabilities for evaluating opportunities
- Managing and monitoring the existing portfolio of deals and assets, providing regular updates and refining opportunity areas as needed
- Supporting creative deal structures and alliance formation, both inbound and outbound, to drive strategic partnerships and collaborations
- Leading the BD team's efforts in branding and visibility, including representing Formation Bio at conferences and industry events to promote partnerships and raise the company's profile
- Staying ahead of industry trends and ensuring that Formation Bio’s strategy remains aligned with long-term goals and emerging opportunities
Our take
Clinical drug trials are lengthy and expensive, delaying the supply of vital new drugs to patients and costing lives. For Formation Bio, this is an efficiency issue - one which it hopes to solve with its end-to-end automation solution.
According to the company, its approach has teams running medical trials twice as fast and at half the cost. This success has pushed Formation to expand beyond supporting trials into developing assets itself. In 2025, it reached a major milestone by licensing its first drug in a deal worth up to hundreds of millions. Alongside this, the company has also added an early immunology program to its pipeline, signalling a broader push into in-house development.
Now a Unicorn, with partners including Pfizer, Sanofi, Novartis and 23andMe, Formation Bio is steadily embedding itself within the Big Pharma ecosystem. How far it can go remains an open question, but the prospect of cheaper drugs and faster innovation is becoming harder for the industry to ignore.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
30% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jun 2024
$372m
SERIES D
Sep 2021
$156m
SERIES C
Total funding: $530.3m
Company benefits
- Flexible Time Off: We have a flexible PTO policy and we encourage our team members to take the time that they need to recharge
- Parental Leave: All parents receive 12 weeks of fully paid bonding leave to welcome a newborn, adopted, or fostered child, and birthing parents are eligible for an additional 6-8 weeks of paid leave
- Comprehensive Benefits: All full time employees have access to health, vision, and dental insurance. Additionally, we provide pre-tax commuter benefits, access to a 401k plan, short and long-term disability and life insurance.
- Education & Career Development Resources: Formation Bio offers a plethora of professional development resources to employees, including a yearly L&D stipend, internal mobility opportunities, in depth trainings, leadership coaching, and more.
- Community: Our teams collaborate closely to achieve our mission, supporting each other across functions and priorities. We build connection through team-building events, quarterly company gatherings, a biennial company-wide retreat, and various Employee Resource Groups.
Company values
- Think in first principles: We rigorously interrogate all possible paths to understand how we can do things differently and faster. We challenge assumptions, ask why, and solve problems from the ground up
- Be a scientist: We are curious and we continuously learn. We steelman, not strawman in debates. We listen, rapidly iterate, and make the best decisions with the evidence we have
- Deliver care: We lead with empathy. We value different perspectives, collaborate across teams, and support one another. We give and receive direct, actionable and timely feedback to hold ourselves and others to a high bar
- Champion the mission: We keep the mission as our north star and deliver impact for patients. We hold ourselves accountable for our wins and failures and keep moving forward
Company HQ
Midtown South, New York, NY
Articles
Leadership
Benjamine Liu
(Co-Founder & CEO)Worked as a computational biologist at various Neurology departments, following a D.Phil in computational Biology and Psychiatry at Oxford. They are also an Advisor at Harvard Business School.
Linhao Zhang
(Co-Founder)Linhao is also the Founder of Foundation 649. Previously, they were a Product Engineer at Oscar Insurance, a Software Engineer at Salesforce, and co-founder of Day 7 Photography.
Dan Neil
(CTO)Prior to joining Formation Bio in 2025, Dan was the Chief Data Officer at Tessera Therapeutics. Before that, they spent nearly 7 years at BenevolentAI in various roles, including SVP of AI & NY Site Lead and CTO.
Dale Klasko
(Senior Vice President, People)Dale built her career as a campus recruiting leader and strategic people business partner at growth-stage companies in the adtech & finservices industries.
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