Director, Strategy & Business Development

Cytokinetics is a specialty cardiovascular biopharmaceutical company, building on its over 25 years of pioneering scientific innovations in muscle biology, and advancing a pipeline of potential new medicines for patients suffering from diseases of cardiac muscle dysfunction.

The Director, Strategy & Business Development is a hands‑on strategic leader who owns and drives critical analytical and strategic work across Cytokinetics. The role helps shape enterprise strategic planning, inform portfolio and business development decisions, and leads the company’s AI ambition as a strategic initiative. Half of the role is dedicated to the Business Development team, requiring the ability to build top‑down drug revenue forecasts and valuations (e.g., sizing an opportunity from epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment rates, pricing, and uptake assumptions) as the first‑pass lens on any asset.

The balance supports enterprise planning, executive/board analysis, and the AI program. It suits a consulting‑or banking‑trained professional who is equally comfortable building a forecast model, framing a strategy narrative, and standing up a scrappy AI tool.

• Own and build first-pass, top-down drug revenue forecasts that translate epidemiology (prevalence/incidence, diagnosis and treatment rates), pricing, and penetration/peak-share assumptions into commercial forecasts that frame an asset's potential quickly and defensibly.
• Own the development and an application of valuation models based off forecasts – rNPV, scenario and sensitivity analysis – including out-licensing / deal modeling. Translate valuation models into clear implications, trade-offs, and recommendations for BD and senior leadership.
• Challenge and pressure-test the latest commercial assumptions and iterations to strengthen the quality of forecast and valuation supporting speed, consistency, and quality of BD decision-making.
• Own and continuously improve the quality of reusable forecast, valuation, comps, and screening templates that improve the speed, consistency, and quality of BD decision-making.
• Support ad-hoc BD analysis and tooling – e.g., an asset‑identification screen across large scientific-congress datasets (methodology and scoring design).

• Support the annual strategic planning cycle and the August Board presentation end to end (narrative, analysis, and synthesis).
• Own and continuously improve cross-functional planning inputs and templates spanning Finance, R&D, and Commercial.

• Support program management for Cytokinetics' AI ambition: intake/triage, prioritization, cadence, and governance-development support (reviewed with IT) across the COC (Company Operating Committee), SLT (Senior Leadership Team), and Executive Committee.
• Engage internal stakeholders; build templates and enablement for "AI champions"; maintain the library/repository of AI use cases with AI Champions.
• Coordinate AI content for COC, SLT, Executive Committee and Board materials.

• Deliver ad-hoc executive analyses inclusive of MFN and drug-pricing differential analysis, and red-team.

• 4-7+ years across strategy consulting, investment banking, corporate strategy, or biotech/pharma BD; MBA, PhD, MD, or equivalent a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to build top-down drug revenue forecasts / commercial models from epidemiology, pricing, and uptake assumptions.
• Strong quantitative and financial-modeling skills: rNPV, DCF, comparable transactions, scenario and sensitivity analysis.
• Strategic thinker able to structure ambiguous problems into decision-ready recommendations.
• AI-capable: fluent with LLM tooling, prompt engineering,…