Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for a Pre-IPO startup

Client background

This Boston-area startup company is pioneering the development of a new class of therapies based on defined bacterial consortia that act by modulating the human microbiome.  They had been using Regulatory Consultants to handle their Regulatory work for the past few years.  But with their lead candidate in Phase 2, the Chief Medical Officer decided that they needed to hire a permanent, full-time Regulatory leader to join the company.

Challenge

They wanted to find a Head of Regulatory Affairs to oversee the global regulatory process for all development programs. This individual would be responsible for architecting regulatory development strategy, advising on regulatory risk, and leading interactions with regulatory agencies on behalf of the company. They really needed somebody who could also roll up their sleeves and do more tactical regulatory work. This company had struggled to find good candidates on their own in a very competitive market in Massachusetts.

Approach

Dennis Partners proposed a Retained Search to fill this important regulatory position.  We kicked off the search in February 2021 and identified over 300 candidates who fit the client’s criteria.  Of those, we narrowed our focus on the ones who came from smaller and privately-held companies. We then recruited, screened, and presented five candidates to our client.  We had weekly meetings with the client to discuss the search, share market intelligence, and debrief on each candidate.

Result

The client interviewed candidates in March and April, and extended an offer to their top choice in early May.  This candidate accepted the offer and will be starting there at the end of May.  We helped to fill this senior regulatory role in under 70 days and our client was delighted with the outcome!