Video Gallery

The Chief Business Officer leads external strategy – licensing deals, identifying pharma partnerships, and developing long-term growth planning and market positioning strategies that maximize the impact of scientific breakthroughs. 

They often represent the company in M&A conversations, investor pitches, and business development meetings. From which they can feedback critical market intelligence to help shape internal research priorities and clinical development strategies. 

In order to be successful, a CBO needs to be able to rely on more than just great science – they need credible execution. 

If a trial is behind on its recruitment targets, that risk shows up in deal terms, timelines, and investor confidence. 

Which is why recruitment staying on track – evidenced by detailed enrollment projections and contingency planning details as provided by the recruitment leads – helps the CBO make the case convincingly that internal momentum can be translated into external value. 

The biotech Chief Operating Officer (COO) ensures that strategy is executed effectively – on time, on budget, and without surprises. 

COOs can often oversee clinical operations, vendor management, project timelines, and site coordination – acting as the engine that keeps programs moving and milestones met. 

As we know, patient recruitment is one of the most operationally fragile elements in a trial. If sites underperform or vendors miss their marks, it can be the COO’s responsibility to resolve the issues. 

Which means the COO should implement early warning systems based on accurate data, and ensure there are clear accountability structures for everyone involved in enrolling patients into a study – working closely with CROs, research sites, and recruitment vendors to keep enrollment activities performing at an optimal level. 

A successful biotech COO isn’t just managing Gantt charts – they’re shaping the operational environment where clinical trials can succeed. 

The Chief Financial Officer – CFO – does far more than manage finances. They enable scientific vision through strategic capital management.

In an industry where companies often operate without revenue for years, skilled CFOs are a vital component in a biotech’s success.

They build the models that connect scientific progress with financial milestones, and ensure there’s enough runway to reach the next inflection point.

Working closely with the CEO, a CFO will allocate resources across competing priorities, as well as helping translate scientific progress into financial language for investors – explaining how pre-revenue value is created through milestone achievements.

If recruitment is delayed or under-resourced, costs rise and confidence drops.

So a finance-savvy biotech ensures that patient recruitment isn’t just operational, it’s part of financial planning and risk mitigation.

Which is why the most effective CFOs understand that while patient recruitment may require significant investment, recruitment delays are ultimately far more costly.

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) is responsible for clinical development and medical oversight. They design protocols, define endpoints, and ensure trials meet ethical and regulatory standards.

CMOs build relationships with investigators and site staff who directly influence a trial’s success, ensuring sites are properly resourced and motivated.

Beyond individual trials, CMOs establish company-wide standards for patient-centric trial design, as well as engaging with patient advocacy organizations and Key Opinion Leaders in the relevant therapy area.

CMOs have a large influence on how recruitable a trial is – through defining Inclusion/Exclusion criteria, visit schedules, site burden, and overall protocol complexity.

They work closely with CROs, operational leads, and increasingly, patient recruitment specialists, to make sure the trial is safe and sound.

And the most successful CMOs understand that patient recruitment isn’t a downstream task, but something built into the design of the trial.

A biotech’s Chief Scientific Officer, or CSO, leads discovery and preclinical strategy.

CSOs in early-stage companies are usually very hands-on – designing experiments, overseeing R&D, and supporting early fundraising activities.

As trials progress, their role may shift toward pipeline expansion, advisory input, and translating complex data into actionable insight.

The CSO’s decisions can also set the tone for what kind of trial is even possible. The choice of indication, mechanism of action, and inclusion/exclusion criteria can all affect patient access.

A trial built solely on elegant science may stumble if it’s impractical to recruit for.

Which is why an understanding of the issues of patient recruitment on the part of the CSO is a key element for success.

Such that, by anticipating recruitment challenges during early research stages, CSOs can help create projects that successfully navigate the clinical trial landscape.

In a biotech company, the CEO is the strategic anchor – balancing scientific understanding with business acumen.

They set the vision, drive fundraising, manage stakeholders, and ultimately decide when and how to move things forward.

They’re responsible for aligning internal teams with investor expectations, making tough calls about partnerships, and balancing long-term value creation with short-term milestones.

In early-stage biotechs, CEOs are often deeply involved in everything – from hiring and IP strategy to trial timelines and financing rounds. And as the company matures, the role can become more about direction-setting, team-building, and managing external relationships.

But if timelines slip due to enrolment issues, it’s the CEO who ultimately answers to investors and the board.

So by embedding recruitment thinking into the structure of their trials, biotech CEOs can ensure this function receives the type of support needed to bring new life-changing treatments to market.

Having worked with multiple biotech companies over the years, I’ve been consistently impressed by the energy, innovation, and dedication of the people behind them. 

These are teams working on incredibly complex problems, often with limited time and funding, who have a real commitment to bringing new treatments to patients who need them. 

One thing I’ve learned is that success in biotech isn’t just about great science, it’s about having the right team in place. 

Over the next week or so, I’m going to share a short series of videos covering the key C-suite roles that I’ve seen help biotech companies succeed – from early-stage discovery through to clinical development and beyond. 

I’ll look at how each role contributes uniquely to overcoming the substantial challenges of bringing new therapies to patients. And I’ll introduce an executive function that I believe is currently missing, but is going to be increasingly vital for achieving success in the future.