Business Development
What this job does:
Identifies, evaluates, and negotiates partnerships, licensing deals, and acquisition opportunities that grow a company's drug pipeline or service offerings. Day-to-day, scans the competitive landscape for promising assets or technologies, meets with potential partners at biotech and pharma companies, leads scientific and commercial due diligence, and coordinates cross-functional teams - including R&D, legal, finance, and IP - to structure and close deals.
This job is similar to these lab/research tasks:
Negotiating authorship and collaboration agreements, coordinating multi-lab projects, critically evaluating scientific data and literature, pitching research ideas to committees and funders
Typical starting salary range
$120k to $200k
Salary estimate represented as 25th to 75th percentile. Gathered from recent job postings, Glassdoor.com, and Salary.com
Daily task breakdown
- Partnership sourcing, networking, and relationship management (30%)
- Scientific and commercial due diligence and opportunity evaluation (25%)
- Deal structuring, negotiation, and contract management (20%)
- Market intelligence and competitive landscape monitoring (15%)
- Internal strategy, presentations, and cross-functional coordination (10%)
Skills you'll use in this job:
Drug and therapeutic development knowledge; scientific due diligence methodology; deal structuring and licensing agreements; IP and patent landscape analysis; financial modeling and asset valuation; market and competitive analysis; CRM tools; regulatory knowledge (FDA pathways); relationship building; strategic thinking; persuasive communication; negotiation; cross-functional team leadership; business acumen
Talk about these PhD skills in your resume and interview:
Talk about initiating and managing research collaborations - negotiating authorship agreements, coordinating multi-lab projects, or securing industry-sponsored research. Talk about rigorous critical evaluation of scientific data and literature, presenting complex findings to diverse audiences, and your deep domain expertise that gives you scientific credibility with R&D stakeholders.
Alternative job titles to search:
Business Development Manager; Business Development Director; Corporate Development Manager; Licensing Manager; Alliance Manager; Strategic Partnerships Manager; Director of Corporate Development; Business Development and Licensing Manager; Search and Evaluation Manager; Associate Director of Business Development
*Note:
-Job titles are inconsistent between companies. Try various keywords.
-PhDs tend to undershoot seniority level. Target higher than you think.
