Head of Business Development, Therapeutics

Compensation: $140,000 to $170,000 per year + performance-based bonus

Final date to receive applications: 19 October 2026

Department:
Partnerships

Location:

Boston

Compensation: $140,000 to $170,000 per year + performance-based bonus

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.

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

• 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.

• 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…