Chesterford research Park – Cambridge

Never losing sight of our purpose

At Mestag we truly believe in our values and live by them every day.  We’re ambitious about our science and its potential to deliver meaningful therapeutics to the patients that need them most. We believe in a culture of diversity, equality and investing in people to ensure our talented and passionate team members can fulfil their full potential.

We are based in spacious and modern laboratory and office facilities at Chesterford Research Park near Cambridge, UK – right in the very heart of the UK lifescience sector.

Our facilities are kitted out with state-of-the-art instruments to enable our dedicated researchers to deliver incredible science.

Mestag is backed by committed leading global investors, has world-class founders and a highly experienced leadership team.

There has never been a better time to join #TeamMestag

 

Job Summary

We are looking for a highly driven and motivated Associate Director or Director with Program Management and drug development experience to join our expanding team here at Mestag.  Our portfolio of first-in-class programs are progressing towards the clinic, and you will be key in partnering with leaders across the company to drive that progression.

 

Scope of role

This is an outstanding opportunity for an R&D manager with experience of leading cross-functional program teams through IND/CTA phase and into first in man studies.  You will join an innovative biotech and work closely with therapeutic Program Leaders and cross-functional teams both internally and externally at an early stage in the company’s history.  Your role will focus on collaborating with our Program Leads as we progress our pre-IND development programs towards and into first in man clinical studies.

Reporting into our Head of Project Management & Portfolio, you will partner with our Program Leaders to drive program strategy, implementation plans, analyse, and track progress across multiple ground-breaking programs. In addition, you will support senior leaders in portfolio strategy, tracking the shape of the portfolio and helping design and manage an approach to ensuring appropriate allocation of resources across the portfolio.

You will be joining an experienced Project Management team and you will help to develop and create a best-in-class function for our company. You will need drive and to maintain a forward-looking and benchmarked perspective to ensure that Mestag’s project management capability reflects best practise and grows in line with our company.

 

Key Responsibilities

Program Operations

• Develop and manage integrated development plan (18 month detailed, 5-yr high level), risk register, decision log, budget and reporting dashboards in monitoring progress of all program deliverables to strategic goals and approved budget.
• Manage day-to-day operations of the program team, including driving the program, goal planning and execution and ID of key strategic issues and decisions.
• Proactively identify critical path activities, anticipate risks, and assist in creating contingency plans.
• Inform key stakeholders of status, issues, problems, and proposed solutions as appropriate in partnership with Program Lead.
• Act as a central point of contact and drive collaboration and consistency across the team.

• Ensure central access to key program documents, presentations, and assessments.
• Prepare periodic reports (e.g. monthly reports, program milestones, dashboards).
• Working with partnered/collaborative programs, ensuring communication, activities and alignment with objectives whilst working alongside key stakeholders - function heads, program leaders, finance and BD.

Portfolio-level reporting and support in decision-making

• Accountable for integration of program/portfolio planning and strategy between R&D/finance and corporate functions.
• Preparation of materials to support portfolio decisions, prioritisation of resources and focus across our portfolio.
• Amalgamate program plans and summarize critical information into clear and accurate information to support decision-making.
• Proactively identify internal/external resource gaps and work with function heads and Program Leaders to rebalance priorities or identify alternate solutions.

 

Minimum Qualifications and Experience required.

• Extensive experience working within Project Management in the pharmaceutical, biologics and/or biotech sector.
• Experience within start-up biologic therapeutic development and early development projects and a good understanding/experience of pre-IND and early clinical development.
• Building and managing inter-personal relationships in an approachable and effective manner.
• Ability to create, coordinate, and maintain integrated project plans with their source material/data and to control or respond to changes in strategy and scope, including scenario planning.
• Competent user of project management software solutions, including skills in critical path analysis. Experience with MS Project and similar programs is essential. 
• Experience in meeting management tools and techniques, with knowledge of decision-making and conflict resolution techniques
• Understanding of financial and resource planning systems and experience in budget management.
• Professional PM qualifications (PMP, Prince2) are an advantage.
• Degree/MSc in a Scientific discipline

 

Other Experience/Abilities:

• Ability to partner and build relationships with Program Leaders to enable a collaborative approach and support each other.
• Proactive and detail orientated individual with a style that ensures effective interfacing with cross-functional teams and across multiple cultures.
• Excellent oral and written communication and interpersonal skills.
• Analytical mindset
• Clear communicator, able to synthesize complex concepts into focused materials for decision-making.

 

 

In return we can offer you

We work flexibly with a strong team spirit and offer a highly competitive total rewards package including competitive salaries, pension contributions, private medical insurance, income protection and more.

We have access to a range of onsite facilities including a gym, canteen, golf course and free parking.

As a team we achieve great things each day, and we take the time to celebrate successes, share and learn. We value the relationships of our close-knit team and strive to make meaningful connections in our community. We frequently hold Town Halls and team lunches, and have an active social committee, organizing regular events and ‘giving back’ activities supporting charities close to our hearts.

Feel free to have an informal discussion with us for any questions you may have, we are happy to talk to you.

 

About Mestag Therapeutics

Mestag is an immunotherapy company harnessing new insights into fibroblast-immune interactions to develop impactful treatments for patients. We are progressing a pipeline of sophisticated first-in-class antibodies designed to improve the lives of patients with cancer and inflammatory disease.  Together with our collaboration partner Janssen Biotech, Inc. we are also identifying novel targets for future therapies.

Our founding investigators comprise global experts in inflammatory disease, cancer, computational biology and fibroblast biology from the University of Oxford, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. We are supported by leading life science investors SV Health Investors, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., Forbion, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Northpond Ventures.

Mestag is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, and in 2021 was recognized on the Fierce 15 list of innovative biotechnology companies.