Senior Life Sciences Partnership Lead

Salary: £70,000 – £80,000 (GBP)(depending upon experience) plus pension and other benefits.

• Part-time/full-time (minimum 30 hours/week)
• Fixed term to 1 year with potential to extend to 2 years

Closing: 12:00pm, 29th Sep 2026 BST

Executive Director of Innovation & Commercial Partnerships, Health Innovation South West

We are seeking a commercially minded senior leader to establish and lead a new Life Sciences Partnership Function for the South West Secure Data Environment (SWSDE).

Serving more than five million people across six Integrated Care Board areas, the SWSDE enables approved researchers to securely access and analyse health and care data to support research and innovation that benefits patients and populations.

This is an opportunity to shape how the South West works with the life sciences sector to develop research, innovation and commercial partnerships. Working across the NHS, academia and industry, you will build and lead a pipeline of partnership opportunities, taking them from initial engagement through to agreed programmes that deliver clear value for partners and the health and care system.

You will play a key role in developing the frameworks, commercial models and ways of working needed to support effective collaboration between the NHS, academia and industry, while maintaining high standards of privacy, security, ethics and public trust.

As Secure Data Environments continue to evolve across the UK, you will help define how organisations work with life sciences partners to use health data safely and responsibly to support research and innovation.

The role forms part of the SWSDE leadership and delivery model and is hosted by Health Innovation South West on behalf of the SWSDE, working closely with Health Innovation West of England and regional NHS and academic partners.

• This role will lead the development and delivery of the Life Sciences Partnership Function for the SWSDE. The postholder will originate, develop and convert high impact partnerships between the SWSDE, NHS organisations and the life science sector that utilise the functionality and capability of the SWSDE safely, ethically and efficiently to deliver benefit for partners and the population of the South West region.
• The role will act as a key interface between the SWSDE and external partners, ensuring opportunities for partnership working between the SWSDE and the life science sector are translated into deliverable, governance-ready programmes that create measurable research, innovation and economic benefits. This will include providing NHS organisations involved in the SWSDE to develop effective partnership working with the life science sector, including pricing approaches, contract development and commercial operating models that enable sustainable collaboration with industry partners.
• This role reflects emerging functions being developed across other SDEs, Trusted Research Environments (TREs) and regional data innovation ecosystems, where specialist life science sector leadership expertise is required to complement technical, governance and academic routes.
• The postholder will develop commercially and operationally viable proposals for consideration through SWSDE governance. The role will not determine access to data. All projects will remain subject to feasibility assessment, information-governance requirements, demonstration of public benefit and independent Data Access Committee approval.

• Lead the development and delivery of the Life Sciences Partnership Strategy for the SWSDE, building the South West’s distinctive position as a preferred regional partner for data-enabled life science sector research and innovation partnerships.
• Build senior relationships with major life science sector organisations and develop strategic anchor partnerships capable of generating sustained partnership activity and long term income.
• Build trusted relationships with SWSDE partner organisations, including Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and NHS providers, supporting partners to develop effective partnership working with the life science sector and the SWSDE.
• Build strategic relationships with relevant national programmes including NHS England, Health Data Research UK and wider research networks.
• Identify collaborative opportunities for Life Science Partnership Function with other SDEs and TREs.

• Lead the…