About Xaira Therapeutics

Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard-to-drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. Collectively, these technologies aim to continually enable the identification of novel therapies and to improve success in drug development. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

The Role
Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Business Development and Operations, the Vice President, Business Development will lead the identification, development, negotiation, and execution of major strategic transactions that expand the reach and value of Xaira’s platform.

This role will focus primarily on originating and executing significant AI platform, technology, and multi-program partnerships. Unlike a traditional biotechnology business development role centered on individual asset licensing, this leader will develop complex partnerships built around Xaira’s differentiated scientific and technical capabilities, with the potential to span multiple platform technologies, programs, disease areas, and stages of research and development.

The Vice President will work closely with the SVP of Business Development and Operations, executive leadership, scientific and technical leaders, and legal and finance partners to shape partnering strategy, identify high-value opportunities, and lead transactions from initial engagement through negotiation, execution, and transition to alliance management.

The ideal candidate combines strong transaction leadership with the ability to understand differentiated science and technology, translate Xaira’s AI and drug development capabilities into strategic and commercial value, and develop creative deal structures with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, technology, and other strategic partners.

Key Responsibilities

Business Development Strategy

Partner with the SVP of Business Development and Operations to develop and execute Xaira’s business development strategy.
Identify opportunities for major AI platform, technology, research, and multi-program partnerships.
Translate Xaira’s scientific and technical capabilities, including itsAI-enabled discovery and development capabilities,into clear and compelling partnership opportunities.
Develop a prioritized pipeline of potential partners and transactions aligned with Xaira’s long-term strategy.
Assess market trends, competitive activity, partner needs, and emerging business models across TechBio, AI, and biopharma, including the evolving landscape for AI-driven drug discovery partnerships.
Provide strategic recommendations to senior leadership regarding partnership opportunities, deal structures, and market positioning.

Deal Origination and Partner Engagement

Proactively originate significant partnership opportunities with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, technology, and other strategic organizations.
Build and maintain senior-level relationships with decision-makers across the biopharma and technology ecosystem.
Lead early discussions with potential partners to understand their scientific, technical, and business priorities, including opportunities to apply AI across research and development.
Develop partnership concepts that connect external needs with Xaira’s platform, expertise, and strategic priorities.
Build opportunities beyond traditional single-asset licensing, including platform collaborations, multi-program partnerships, technology alliances,AI-focused collaborations, and other strategic transactions.
Represent Xaira at industry meetings, partnering conferences, and other external forums.

Transaction Leadership

Lead major transactions from initial concept and partner engagement through diligence, negotiation, internal approval, and execution.
Develop creative deal structures that may include upfront payments, research funding, milestones, royalties, option rights, co-development arrangements, and other economic components.
Ensure deal structures appropriately reflect the long-term value of Xaira’s platform, AI capabilities, and intellectual property.
Lead cross-functional transaction teams involving scientific, technical, legal, finance, operations, and executive stakeholders.
Develop transaction strategies, valuation frameworks, negotiation positions, and executive recommendations, including approaches for valuing differentiated AI technologies and platform capabilities.
Prepare materials for executive leadership and Board review.
Maintain momentum, accountability, and clear decision-making throughout complex deal processes.

Cross-Functional Leadership

Work closely with scientific and technical leaders to define the scope, objectives, deliverables, and resource requirements of potential partnerships, including partnerships involvingAI models, technologies, and workflows.
Partner with finance to assess deal economics, valuation, resource commitments, and financial scenarios.
Partner with legal to negotiate agreements that protect Xaira’s intellectual property and long-term strategic flexibility, including considerations related to AI-generated insights and outputs.
Ensure proposed partnership commitments are aligned with internal capabilities and company priorities.
Build alignment across stakeholders on transaction strategy, economics, risks, and decision points.
Support the transition of executed partnerships into alliance management and ongoing governance.

Alliance Management

Lead the transition of executed transactions from deal teams into effective alliance management, ensuring continuity between the original strategic intent and partnership execution.
Establish and maintain governance structures, decision-making processes, communication plans, and escalation pathways for strategic alliances.
Serve as a senior point of contact for external partners and build trusted, productive relationships across scientific, technical, operational, and executive stakeholders.
Partner with internal teams to track contractual obligations, deliverables, milestones, resource commitments, and financial considerations.
Ensure partnerships involving AI-enabled research, technologies, and development programs remain aligned with agreed objectives, responsibilities, data requirements, and measures of success.
Identify and resolve risks, misalignment, and execution challenges before they affect partnership outcomes.
Identify opportunities to expand successful alliances into additional programs, technologies, disease areas, orAI-driven collaborations.
Provide senior leadership with clear updates on alliance performance, risks, decisions, and opportunities for continued value creation.

Platform Positioning and Market Development

Help define how Xaira presents its platform, capabilities, and partnership model to the external market.
Develop clear and differentiated narratives for scientific, technical, executive, and business audiences, including the role of AI in advancing drug discovery and development.
Identify new partnership models that reflect the evolving intersection of biotechnology, artificial intelligence, data, and drug discovery.
Strengthen Xaira’s position as a strategic partner for complex, AI-enabled research and development collaborations.
Build market awareness of Xaira’s capabilities and the potential value of partnering with the company.

Qualifications

Significant experience in business development, corporate development, licensing, strategic partnerships, or a related role within biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, TechBio, or a relevant technology organization.
Demonstrated experience leading and closing large, complex strategic transactions.
Strong experience originating and executing sell-side business development opportunities.
Experience with platform, technology, AI, research collaboration, multi-program, or discovery-stage partnerships strongly preferred.
Demonstrated experience managing strategic alliances from transaction execution through ongoing governance, delivery, and expansion.
Ability to understand complex scientific and technical capabilities, including AI-enabled technologies, and translate them into strategic and commercial value.
Strong knowledge of transaction structures, valuation principles, financial terms, intellectual property considerations, and deal governance.
Experience working closely with scientific, technical, legal, finance, operations, and executive teams.
Established credibility and relationships across the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or technology partnering ecosystem.
Strong executive presence, judgment, negotiation skills, and written and verbal communication.
Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving environment where strategy, technology, AI capabilities, and partnership models continue to evolve.
Advanced scientific or technical degree, MBA, JD, or equivalent experience is valued but not required.

Core Competencies

Strategic Deal Leadership: Ability to shape, structure, and lead complex, high-value transactions from initial concept through execution.
Opportunity Origination: Strong track record of proactively identifying and developing significant partnership opportunities.
Platform and Technology Fluency: Ability to understand complex scientific and technical capabilities, including AI technologies, and translate them into differentiated partnership opportunities.
Commercial Judgment: Strong understanding of value creation, deal economics, market dynamics, and long-term strategic tradeoffs.
Creative Deal Structuring: Ability to develop partnership models beyond traditional single-asset licensing, including platform, technology, research,AI, and multi-program collaborations.
Alliance Leadership: Ability to establish effective governance, manage complex partner relationships, resolve challenges, and create additional value throughout the life of an alliance.
Negotiation: Skilled at navigating complex negotiations while protecting Xaira’s intellectual property, strategic flexibility, and long-term value.
Executive Communication: Ability to present complex opportunities, risks, and recommendations clearly to senior leadership and the Board.
Cross-Functional Influence: Demonstrated ability to align scientific, technical, legal, finance, and operational stakeholders around complex decisions.
Relationship Building: Ability to establish credibility and build trusted relationships with senior external partners and internal leaders.
Execution and Accountability: Brings structure, pace, sound judgment, and follow-through to complex and often ambiguous deal processes.

Compensation

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, seeking to provide an open, flexible, and friendly work environment to empower employees and provide them with a platform to develop their long-term careers. A Summary of Benefits is available for all applicants. We offer a competitive package that includes base salary, bonus, and equity. The base pay range for this position is expected to be $250,000 - $325,000 annually; however, the base pay offered will vary depending on the market, job-related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience.

Xaira Therapeutics an equal-opportunity employer. We believe that our strength is in our differences. Our goal to build a diverse and inclusive team began on day one, and it will never end.

TO ALL RECRUITMENT AGENCIES: Xaira Therapeutics does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or employees. Xaira Therapeutics is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

About the company

Xaira Therapeutics uses artificial intelligence to transform drug discovery and development. It builds a pipeline of protein- and antibody-based therapeutics by combining generative AI models from the IPD lab (notably RFdiffusion and RFantibody) with large, multidimensional biological data. The company designs novel proteins and antibodies from scratch to target difficult, previously undruggable biology, then validates and evolves these molecules through iterative data generation that improves its biological foundation models. Unlike many entrants that offer research services, Xaira aims to own and advance its own therapeutic pipeline across multiple modalities, rather than solely providing platforms. The goal is to deliver effective new medicines faster and with a lower chance of failure by integrating AI-driven design, expansive data, and expert leadership.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Late Stage VC

Total Funding

$1B

Headquarters

South San Francisco, California

Founded

2023

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

March 17, 2026 X-Cell launched with 4.9 billion parameters.
July 6, 2026 promotions added McCaffery, Chu, and Wang to execution.
Xaira targets inflammatory and immunological diseases, the richest near-term pharma markets.

What critics are saying

Paulo Fontoura left Xaira for Sanofi on September 1, 2026, exposing senior-leadership churn.
Xaira still lacks human efficacy data; X-Cell remains preclinical on March 17, 2026.
If X-Cell misses human biology, Xaira's billion-dollar thesis collapses before first approvals.

What makes Xaira Therapeutics unique

X-Cell uses 25.6 million perturbation profiles, dwarfing peer virtual-cell datasets.
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, David Baker, and Bo Wang unite biology, AI, and therapeutics.
Xaira builds its own drugs, not a services platform, preserving pipeline economics.

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Benefits

Flexible Work Hours
Stock Options
Company Equity

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

1 year growth

2 year growth

11%

Noah Business Intelligence

Aug 6th, 2026

AlphaFold 3 predicts protein interactions as AI drug discovery draws $1.6B in funding

Google DeepMind's AlphaFold has predicted over 200 million protein structures, dramatically accelerating what once took months through traditional methods. The company introduced AlphaFold 3 in May 2024, designed to predict interactions across proteins, DNA, RNA and drug molecules. Insilico Medicine identified a drug candidate in under 18 months at a cost of $2.6 million, demonstrating AI's impact on discovery economics. The sector has attracted substantial investment, including a $1 billion Series A for Xaira Therapeutics and $600 million for Isomorphic Labs. The shift is driven by expanding genomic and proteomic datasets that outpace traditional analysis methods. North America leads adoption, whilst Europe's EMBL-EBI network and Asia-Pacific's growing genomics infrastructure are broadening the competitive landscape.

Business Chief

Jul 25th, 2026

Sanofi announces executive leadership reshuffle.

Sanofi announces executive leadership reshuffle. July 25, 2026 Sanofi's new executive team brings c-suite leaders from across the firm's global segments to support its 'next strategic chapter' and future growth Sanofi has restructured its Executive Committee as part of a leadership transition designed to support the pharmaceutical company's next stage of growth. The changes bring together senior figures from across its commercial units, research divisions and global functions into a single leadership group. Belén Garijo, Chief Executive Officer at Sanofi, says the updated leadership team is intended to guide the company through its coming phase of development, with patients and innovation remaining central to its strategy. "This Executive Committee brings together experienced professionals who will work together to help shape our future direction, make disciplined choices, execute them with focus and ensure we continue to deliver for our patients, our people and all our stakeholders," she says. From 1 September 2026, Sanofi's Executive Committee will include the following members: * Paulo Fontoura, Executive Vice President, Head of Research & Development (Formerly Chief Medical Officer at Xaira Therapeutics) * Thomas Grenier, Executive Vice President, General Medicines (Formerly Head of North America, Vaccines) * François Roger, Executive Vice President, Finance (Formerly Chief Financial Officer) * Jamie Haney, Executive Vice President, General Counsel (Formerly Senior Vice President - General Counsel North America & Global Specialty Care) * Véronique Jaillet, Executive Vice President, Interim Chief People Officer (Formerly Head of Global Human Resources Manufacturing & Supply) * Manuela Buxo, Executive Vice President, Specialty Care * Thomas Triomphe, Executive Vice President, Vaccines * Brendan O'Callaghan, Executive Vice President, Manufacturing & Supply Paulo joins Sanofi as a new hire, arriving on 1 September 2026 from Xaira Therapeutics, an AI-focused biotechnology company where he held the role of Chief Medical Officer. Writing about his appointment on LinkedIn, Paulo says, "I am incredibly excited to be joining Belén Garijo and everyone at team Sanofi in this new role, to work together to create an amazing pipeline of new medicines that will make a real difference in the lives of patients." He adds, "I am convinced that we stand at the threshold of a revolution in biopharma R&D, where we can combine our deepening understanding of disease biology with new computational tools in AI/ML to derive new insights that will solve the most complex biology problems and create cures for many more diseases around the world." Executives take on new roles. Beyond the reshaped committee, Sanofi has confirmed that several existing leaders are moving into new positions as part of the wider reshuffle. Thomas will retain his role as Executive Vice President of Vaccines while also taking on responsibility for China. Olivier Charmeil will step down from his position as Executive Vice President of General Medicines to become Strategic Projects Advisor to Belén. Madeleine Roach has been appointed President and Country Lead for Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Her existing Business Operations responsibilities will move into the Finance division under François. The Finance function will also take on responsibility for Global Partnering and Business Development, placing business development and mergers and acquisitions activity under one leadership structure. According to Sanofi, this consolidation is intended to create a more integrated approach to identifying and executing strategic growth opportunities. Momentum from earlier in 2026. The leadership changes arrive after a period of regulatory and pipeline progress for Sanofi across the first half of 2026. In June, the European Commission approved Sanofi's Cenrifki medication as the first disability-targeting treatment for secondary progressive multiple sclerosis without relapses. In the same period, the company secured US approval for Tzield as the first disease-modifying therapy for recently diagnosed stage 3 type 1 diabetes. Sanofi has also reported progress in its rare disease portfolio during 2026. The company received US approval for an on-body injector version of its multiple myeloma therapy, Sarclisa Escena, and reported positive Phase III results for Nexviazyme in infantile-onset Pompe disease. Executives. * Belén Garijo CEO * Brendan O'Callaghan Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Supply * François-Xavier Roger Executive Vice President, Finance * Jamie Haney Executive Vice President, General Counsel * Madeleine Roach President and Country Lead for Germany, Switzerland and Austria * Manuela Buxo Executive Vice President, Specialty Care * Olivier Charmeil Strategic Projects Advisor * Paulo Fontoura Global Head of Research & Development Pharma * Thomas Triomphe Executive Vice President Vaccines, Sanofi * Veronique Jaillet Head of Global Human Resources Manufacturing & Supply, Sanofi Company Portals

Healthcare Digital

Jul 23rd, 2026

Sanofi's Executive leadership reshuffle: the key changes.

Sanofi's Executive leadership reshuffle: the key changes. July 23, 2026 Sanofi's revamped executive team brings leaders from across the company's key global functions to support its "next strategic chapter" and future growth Sanofi has announced a reshaped Executive Committee and key leadership changes as the pharmaceutical giant prepares for its next phase of growth, bringing together a streamlined executive team from across its commercial businesses, research organisations and global functions. Belén Garijo, CEO at Sanofi, says the refreshed leadership team will help guide the company through its next stage of development while maintaining a strong focus on patients and innovation. "This Executive Committee brings together experienced professionals who will work together to help shape our future direction, make disciplined choices, execute them with focus and ensure we continue to deliver for our patients, our people and all our stakeholders," she says. A new chapter. As of 1 September 2026, Sanofi's Executive Committee will comprise: * Paulo Fontoura, Executive Vice President, Head of Research & Development (Formerly Chief Medical Officer at Xaira Therapeutics) * Thomas Grenier, Executive Vice President, General Medicines (Formerly Head of North America, Vaccines) * François Roger, Executive Vice President, Finance (Formerly Chief Financial Officer) * Jamie Haney, Executive Vice President, General Counsel (Formerly Senior Vice President - General Counsel North America & Global Specialty Care) * Véronique Jaillet, Executive Vice President, Interim Chief People Officer (Formerly Head of Global Human Resources Manufacturing & Supply) * Manuela Buxo, Executive Vice President, Specialty Care * Thomas Triomphe, Executive Vice President, Vaccines * Brendan O'Callaghan, Executive Vice President, Manufacturing & Supply Paulo Fontoura is a new hire who will join Sanofi on 1 September 2026 from AI-focused biotechnology company Xaira Therapeutics, where he served as Chief Medical Officer. Discussing his new role on LinkedIn, Paulo writes, "I am incredibly excited to be joining Belén Garijo and everyone at team Sanofi in this new role, to work together to create an amazing pipeline of new medicines that will make a real difference in the lives of patients. "I am convinced that we stand at the threshold of a revolution in biopharma R&D, where we can combine our deepening understanding of disease biology with new computational tools in AI/ML to derive new insights that will solve the most complex biology problems and create cures for many more diseases around the world." New responsibilities for key executives. In addition to the refreshed Executive Committee, Sanofi announced that several key figures in its leadership team have taken on new responsibilities as part of the reshuffle. Thomas Triomphe will add responsibility for China alongside his existing role as Executive Vice President of Vaccines, while Olivier Charmeil will step down as Executive Vice President of General Medicines to become Strategic Projects Advisor to CEO Belén Garijo. Madeleine Roach will become President and Country Lead for Germany, Switzerland and Austria, with her Business Operations responsibilities being absorbed into Sanofi's Finance division under François Roger. The expanded finance function will also take responsibility for Global Partnering and Business Development, bringing business development and mergers and acquisitions activities under a single leadership structure. The company says the move is intended to create a more integrated approach to identifying and executing strategic growth opportunities. Maintaining 2026's momentum. The leadership changes follow a busy first half of 2026 for Sanofi, marked by a series of regulatory milestones and pipeline advances. In June, the European Commission approved Sanofi's Cenrifki medication as the first disability-targeting treatment for secondary progressive multiple sclerosis without relapses, while the company also secured US approval for Tzield as the first disease-modifying therapy for recently diagnosed stage 3 type 1 diabetes. Sanofi has also made strong progress in strengthening its rare disease portfolio in 2026 after receiving US approval for an on-body injector version of its multiple myeloma therapy Sarclisa Escena and reporting positive Phase III results for Nexviazyme in infantile-onset Pompe disease. Executives. * Belén Garijo CEO * Brendan O'Callaghan Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Supply * François-Xavier Roger Executive Vice President, Finance * Jamie Haney Executive Vice President, General Counsel * Madeleine Roach President and Country Lead for Germany, Switzerland and Austria * Manuela Buxo Executive Vice President, Specialty Care * Olivier Charmeil Strategic Projects Advisor * Paulo Fontoura Global Head of Research & Development Pharma * Thomas Triomphe Executive Vice President Vaccines, Sanofi * Veronique Jaillet Head of Global Human Resources Manufacturing & Supply, Sanofi Company Portals

Citybiz

Jul 6th, 2026

Xaira Therapeutics expands leadership team with executive appointment and internal promotions.

Xaira Therapeutics expands leadership team with executive appointment and internal promotions. July 6, 2026 Xaira Therapeutics has strengthened its executive leadership team with the appointment of Ian McCaffery, Ph.D., as Senior Vice President of Translational Science and Early Clinical Development, while promoting Ci Chu, Ph.D., to Chief Discovery Officer and Bo Wang, Ph.D., to Chief AI Scientist. The South San Francisco-based biotechnology company said all three executives will report to CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne as it advances its AI-driven drug discovery and development platform. The leadership changes come as Xaira continues to expand the operational capabilities behind its artificial intelligence models and therapeutic pipeline. McCaffery will oversee the company's precision medicine strategy, translational science efforts and early clinical development programs, with responsibility for advancing AI-designed therapeutics into clinical studies. His role also includes guiding Xaira's patient stratification initiatives through the company's AI-driven disease analysis platform while working closely with Chu and Wang to develop models that improve understanding of disease variation and patient responses. McCaffery joins Xaira from AbbVie, where he served as Vice President and Global Head of Precision Medicine and Companion Diagnostics. During his tenure, he led multidisciplinary teams spanning translational science, clinical development, diagnostics and engineering across oncology, immunology and neuroscience programs. His work incorporated clinical data, real-world evidence and artificial intelligence to support drug development, target identification and regulatory submissions, including investigational new drug applications, biologics license applications, new drug applications and companion diagnostic approvals. CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne said McCaffery's experience across translational research, precision medicine, diagnostics and AI-enabled discovery positions him to help advance the company's X-Patient platform alongside its growing clinical development portfolio. He added that Chu and Wang have played central roles in building Xaira's biology and AI capabilities, and their promotions reflect both their contributions and the company's next phase of growth. McCaffery said advances in computational capabilities combined with expanding biological datasets have created an opportunity to reshape how medicines are discovered and developed, adding that Xaira is well positioned to capitalize on that convergence. The internal promotions recognize two scientists who have helped establish the company's AI-enabled research infrastructure since its launch. Chu, previously Senior Vice President of AI-Enabled Discovery, has led Xaira's high-throughput biology organization, generating large-scale experimental datasets used to train the company's virtual cell models and support therapeutic design. Before joining Xaira, she led high-content phenotyping and functional genomics teams at insitro, bringing experience at the intersection of automated biology and machine learning. As Chief AI Scientist, Wang will continue leading the company's biomedical AI strategy. A former associate professor at the University of Toronto, he has focused his research on foundation models for healthcare and biology, including AI systems for genomic analysis, biomolecular modeling and precision medicine. He also led development of scGPT, described as the first single-cell foundation model, and BioReason, a biological reasoning model. Together, Chu and Wang have helped develop X-Cell, Xaira's first virtual cell model, along with the X-Atlas/Pisces dataset that underpins it. According to the company, X-Cell was trained using what it describes as the largest publicly released genome-wide CRISPRi Perturb-seq dataset, consisting of 25.6 million perturbed single-cell transcriptomes across seven biologically distinct cellular contexts. The 4.9-billion-parameter model is designed to predict cellular responses to genetic perturbations and support AI-guided therapeutic discovery. Chu said the effectiveness of AI in drug discovery depends heavily on the quality and scale of biological data, noting that Xaira's integrated laboratory and computational workflows are intended to create a continuous feedback loop between experimental research and machine learning models. Wang added that the company's goal is to ensure AI produces measurable scientific advances, describing X-Cell as an example of applying large-scale models to improve biological research and therapeutic development. Founded to integrate machine learning, large-scale biological data generation and drug development into a unified platform, Xaira Therapeutics is building a pipeline of AI-designed medicines that the company said is progressing toward clinical development. In addition to its headquarters in South San Francisco, the company operates innovation centers in Seattle and London.

Business Wire

Mar 26th, 2026

Xaira Therapeutics appoints Rachel Lane as SVP to lead business development and AI drug discovery partnerships

Xaira Therapeutics has appointed Rachel Lane as Senior Vice President of Business Development and Operations. She will oversee business development strategy and drive partnerships integrating machine learning with therapeutic development. Lane brings over a decade of biotech leadership experience as an operator and investor. Most recently, she served as Chief Business Officer at Belharra Therapeutics, where she closed major platform partnerships with Genentech and Sanofi. She previously worked at Versant Ventures and holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. This month, Xaira launched X-Cell, its virtual cell model trained on 25.6 million perturbed single-cell transcriptomes. The 4.9 billion-parameter model predicts outcomes of genetic perturbations, marking progress towards transforming drug discovery into a predictive engineering discipline.

Xaira Therapeutics

Vice President, Business Development and Alliance Management

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