Strategy Lead, Corporate Development Specialty Care GBU

About the job

Join the team transforming care for people with immune challenges, rare diseases, cancers, and neurological conditions. In Specialty Care, you’ll help deliver breakthrough treatments that bring hope to patients with some of the highest unmet needs.

About Sanofi

We’re an R&D-driven, AI-powered biopharma company committed to improving people’s lives and delivering compelling growth. Our deep understanding of the immune system – and innovative pipeline – enables us to invent medicines and vaccines that treat and protect millions of people around the world. Together, we chase the miracles of science to improve people’s lives.

Main responsibilities

• Process Standardization & GBU Coherence
• Define and steward a consistent, GBU-level approach to identifying and assessing external opportunities across BD/M&A and licensing, so the franchises work to a common standard.
• Align the methods, criteria, and stage gates used to evaluate opportunities, raising the quality and comparability of assessments across the franchises.
• Bring a single, portfolio-level view of external opportunities together for GBU leadership to support prioritization across the franchises.
• Cordination across Franchises and BD/M&A Teams
• Work closely with each franchise’s new product planning team and the central BD and M&A teams to build a systematic, joined-up approach to sourcing and scoping opportunities.
• Connect activity across the franchises so the GBU pursues external growth in a coordinated rather than fragmented way, surfacing synergies and avoiding duplication.
• Act as the GBU-level point of coordination between the franchises, central BD/M&A, and Finance through the opportunity-assessment process.
• Opportunity & Asset Assessment
• Provide scientifically grounded assessment of assets and targets, working with franchise and functional experts on mechanism, clinical rationale, and competitive landscape.
• Support valuation and business-case development for priority opportunities, working closely with Finance to connect commercial assumptions to the underlying financial analysis.
• Translate complex scientific, clinical, and commercial inputs into clear analysis that supports investment discussions.
• Thought Partnership & Operating Effectiveness
• Serve as a thought partner to the Global Head of Strategy & Operations on the GBU’s BD/M&A and licensing priorities and its pipeline of external opportunities.
• Improve the efficiency of the GBU’s opportunity-assessment process so decisions are well-supported and timely.
• Capture and share good practice across the franchises to raise the overall standard of corporate development work in the GBU.

About you

• Education:
• Bachelor’s degree required; scientific or business field is preferred.
• An advanced degree in life sciences (MD, PhD, or PharmD) and/or an MBA is preferred.
• Experience:
• Minimum 8 years of Progressive experience across corporate development, business development & licensing (BD&L), and/or M&A in biopharma, ideally with exposure to specialty therapeutic areas.
• Strong asset and target evaluation capability that combines genuine scientific literacy with commercial and financial assessment, with the ability to engage credibly on both the science and the deal economics.
• Direct involvement in BD&L and/or M&A activity, such as opportunity assessment, due diligence, valuation, or deal teams, is a strong advantage.
• A track record of coordinating across multiple teams or functions to bring consistency and rigor to a shared process.
• Must be able to travel 20% domestic and international.
• Skills & Competencies:
• Financial and deal acumen: a strong grounding in valuation, business-case development, and the economics of BD/M&A and licensing, with the confidence to partner closely with Finance.
• Scientific grounding: able to assess mechanism, clinical rationale, and competitive landscape across the GBU’s therapeutic areas, and to know when to pressure-test with subject-matter experts.
• Process and coordination: brings structure, consistency, and discipline to complex, multi-team activity.
• Influence: strong communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the credibility to align franchise and functional teams without direct authority.
• Leadership skills:
• Strategic thinking: connects individual opportunities to the GBU’s broader portfolio strategy and priorities, and keeps the focus on what matters most.
• Relationships and influence: politically astute, builds trust across franchises and functions, and role-models collaboration.
• Result orientation: brings rigor and pace to opportunity assessment, anticipates issues, and takes ownership of outcomes.
• Agility: comfortable with ambiguity and able to adapt quickly in a fast-paced, matrixed global environment.

Skills & Competencies

• Financial and deal acumen: a strong grounding in valuation, business-case development, and the economics of BD/M&A and licensing, with the confidence to partner closely with Finance.
• Scientific grounding: able to assess mechanism, clinical rationale, and competitive landscape across the GBU’s therapeutic areas, and to know when to pressure-test with subject-matter experts.
• Process and coordination: brings structure, consistency, and discipline to complex, multi-team activity.
• Influence: strong communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the credibility to align franchise and functional teams without direct authority.

Leadership skills

• Strategic thinking: connects individual opportunities to the GBU’s broader portfolio strategy and priorities, and keeps the focus on what matters most.
• Relationships and influence: politically astute, builds trust across franchises and functions, and role-models collaboration.
• Result orientation: brings rigor and pace to opportunity assessment, anticipates issues, and takes ownership of outcomes.
• Agility: comfortable with ambiguity and able to adapt quickly in a fast-paced, matrixed global environment.

Languages

Fully fluent in English.