Job description

About Inovia Bio

Inovia Bio is a TechBio firm dedicated to transforming the drug development process, which is usually slow and costly. We empower biotech and pharmaceutical enterprises with capabilities akin to big pharma, leveraging our advanced technology platforms and expert consultancy to condense tasks like clinical development planning, integrated evidence design, and real-world data generation from months into a matter of days or weeks.

Our organisation is structured into two interlinked divisions: a consultancy arm advising pharmaceutical and biotech clients on development tactics, evidence strategy, and data analysis, and a technology division that creates platforms to accelerate this work and develop products directly utilised by customers. Insights gained from each client inform our products, while our delivered products refine our consulting offerings. This synergistic cycle is central to our product strategy and is what this leadership role will focus on.

Role Overview

The Lead/VP of Product serves as the key integrator in the company, bridging the realms of medical science, commercial strategy, and software development. Currently, this coordination is managed informally by the founders; this role formalises and owns that function. The individual will gather insights from medical and commercial teams and interface with customers to translate learnings into a concise and strategically prioritized product roadmap for the technology team.

This leadership position entails direct collaboration with founders, full ownership of product lifecycle and vision, and setting the development agenda. The role is also hands-on with no existing product team, requiring direct involvement in strategy writing, discovery, prioritization decisions, and accountability for product delivery.

Key Responsibilities

Develop and maintain a clear product strategy grounded in customer, market, and consulting insights.
Create and communicate a unified, prioritized product roadmap understood across the company.
Lead rigorous prioritization decisions, balancing input from medical, commercial, client, founding, and engineering sources.
Engage directly with customers and users through structured discovery to ensure product decisions reflect actual market needs.
Translate product needs into precise problem definitions, requirements, and success metrics to guide the technology team effectively.
Ensure timely product delivery by managing planning, tracking, and mitigating risks early to meet deadlines.
Integrate insights from medical and commercial divisions to form structured product evidence.
Collaborate closely with engineering, shaping problem statements, drafting specifications and acceptance criteria, managing scope trade-offs, and resolving blockers promptly.
Define product success indicators, evaluate outcomes honestly, and terminate initiatives that do not deliver.
Balance roadmap priorities to support both consultancy leverage and scalable product platform goals.
Establish sustainable, transparent product decision-making processes that endure beyond single meetings.
Lead agile delivery practices end-to-end, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, and release scheduling, ensuring deadlines remain inviolable.

Success Metrics at 12 Months

A singular, well-communicated roadmap exists with clear justifications for all items.
Technology teams have clarity on requirements, success metrics, and rationale, eliminating guesswork.
Customer and user insights systematically influence product choices via repeatable methods.
Product ownership is fully transitioned from founders, freeing them to focus on unique contributions.
At least one product hypothesis has been thoroughly validated or invalidated based on evidence.

Candidate Profile

Essential Qualifications and Skills:

Extensive experience in product management including full responsibility for strategy and roadmaps, preferably in B2B SaaS, data platforms, or technical products.
Strong familiarity with the pharmaceutical or life sciences sector, or a proven capacity to quickly attain expertise in clinical development, evidence generation, and real-world data applications.
A highly analytical mindset capable of clear, logical problem solving grounded in evidence rather than politics or ego.
Robust ability to prioritize and decisively manage competing stakeholder demands.
Expertise in agile methodologies, capable of running and adapting sprint planning and iterative delivery cycles to sustain rapid, dependable execution.
Proficient in user and customer discovery techniques, turning qualitative feedback into actionable product decisions.
Excellent communication skills, able to effectively engage and align medical directors, commercial leaders, engineers, and clients.
Comfortable operating in a startup environment with high autonomy and minimal predetermined processes.

Desirable Attributes:

Background in pharma, biotech, health-tech, clinical research organisations, or life sciences consultancy.
Experience as a founding or chief product role in an emerging company or scale-up.
Technical or scientific knowledge sufficient to meaningfully engage with data science and engineering teams.
Experience delivering products that integrate services with software, or transforming consultancy offerings into productised services.

Collaboration and Reporting

The successful candidate will report directly to the founders and collaborate daily with medical experts holding deep drug development and evidence expertise, commercial teams responsible for client relations and market insights, and technology teams comprising engineers and data scientists who build platforms. Regular engagement with customer stakeholders including biotech and pharmaceutical development, medical affairs, and evidence teams is also expected.