Sandoz Posted May 26, 2026

Director Business Development – Biosimilars (m/f/d)

Holzkirchen (Sandoz International GmbH), Germany Full time
BD&L & Strategic Planning Director

Sandoz is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Job Description Summary

The Business Development Director for Biosimilars will lead strategic initiatives to identify, evaluate, and execute business development opportunities that strengthen the company’s biosimilars portfolio. This role requires deep industry knowledge, preferably in Biosimilars, strong negotiation skills, and experience- preferably with an M&A and/or finance background, and the ability to build partnerships that drive long-term growth in a highly competitive and regulated environment.

Job Description

Sandoz continues to go through an exciting and transformative period as a global leader and pioneering provider of sustainable Biosimilar and Generic medicines. As we continue down this new and ambitious path, unique opportunities will present themselves, both professionally and personally. Join us, the future is ours to shape!

Your Key Responsibilities:

Your responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Identify, evaluate, and prioritize strategic opportunities including partnerships, and licensing deals.

Lead end‑to‑end deal processes: opportunity assessment, financial modelling, due diligence, term sheet development, contract negotiation, and management approval for Signature.

Develop clear, data‑driven recommendations to shape portfolio and investment decisions.

Monitor trends, competitive moves, and regulatory shifts across the global biosimilars landscape.

Translate market insights into strategic options that strengthen Sandoz’s leadership position.

Partner with internal R&D, Technical Operations, Commercial, and Regulatory teams to assess feasibility, fit, and value.

Cultivate strong relationships with external partners

Represent Sandoz with credibility and clarity throughout negotiations and collaboration discussions.

Ensure smooth handover of executed deals to alliance or operational teams for long‑term success.

Bring together multidisciplinary teams to evaluate and execute BD opportunities.

Prepare high‑quality materials and recommendations for senior leadership and governance committees.

Help strengthen BD capabilities, processes, and ways of working

What you’ll bring to the role:

Essential Requirements:

Advanced degree in Life Sciences, Pharmacy, or Business (MBA preferred).

12-15 years of experience pharmaceutical industry, with at least 5 years in BD in biosimilars or biologics.

Proven track record of executing complex BD transactions (licensing, M&A, partnerships).

Strong network in Biosimilar industry, good understanding of global biosimilars market, regulatory pathways, and commercialization strategies.

Excellent negotiation, communication, and stakeholder management skills

You’ll receive:

Sandoz has an employee-first approach and that’s why your personal growth is so important to us. You will have access to Coursera and other learning platforms with more than 200,000 learning videos and 5000+ courses.

In addition to the various learning opportunities, we offer company benefits, such as:

30 days of annual leave

Holiday allowance

Additional rewards for special occasions (e.g. service length awards, marriage celebration, etc.)

Company pension schemes and capital formation benefits

Parental leave

Other offerings, such as bike leasing

Why Sandoz?

Generic and Biosimilar medicines are the backbone of the global medicines industry. Sandoz, a leader in this sector, provided more than 900 million patient treatments across 100+ countries in 2024 and while we are proud of this achievement, we have an ambition to do more!

With investments in new development capabilities, production sites, new acquisitions, and partnerships, we have the opportunity to shape the future of Sandoz and help more patients gain access to low-cost, high-quality medicines, sustainably.

Our momentum is powered by an open, collaborative culture driven by our talented and ambitious colleagues, who, in return for applying their skills experience an agile and collegiate environment with impactful, flexible-hybrid careers, where diversity is welcomed and where personal growth is supported!

Join us!

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

We are committed to building an outstanding, inclusive work environment and diverse teams representative of the patients and communities we serve.

Hiring decisions are only based on the qualification for the position, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age and disability.

The law provides for severely disabled / equal applicants the opportunity to involve the local representative body for disabled employees (SBV) in the application process. If you would like to request this, please let us know in advance as a note on your CV.

#Sandoz

Skills Desired

Alliance Management, B2B Software, Biosimilar Drugs, Business Development, Collaboration, Creativity, Customer Experience, Due Diligence, E-Learning, Evaluation, Financial Modeling, Global Business Development, Intellectual Property (Ip), Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), Promotion Marketing, Sales, Scouting, Search, Selling Skills, Transactions

Job details

Seniority
Director
Function
BD&L & Strategic Planning
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Holzkirchen (Sandoz International GmbH), Germany
Employment type
Full time

How this role compares

Computed from every other active BD&L & Strategic Planning role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 33 comparable Director BD&L & Strategic Planning roles across 12 biopharma companies.

33Comparable roles tracked
32Currently active
12Companies hiring similar roles
7Countries represented

Salary context

12 of 33 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Director, Group Portfolio Execution · Merck KGaA $151,900/yr – $227,900/yr
Highest disclosed · Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, External Surfaces · Pfizer $214,900/yr – $358,100/yr
Peer group range $189,900 – $286,500 (median $240,325)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 33 comparable roles

United States17
China6
United Kingdom4
Germany3
Spain1
Korea (the Republic of)1

+ 1 more countries

Seniority mix

33 of 33 peers have a known seniority level

Director25
Senior Director5
Principal3

Therapeutic area mix

5 of 33 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Immunology3
Oncology1
Cardiovascular / CVRM1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

60%similar
Regeneron GmbH Munich, Germany Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
50%similar
Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany Senior Director
Same function Adjacent seniority Same country
45%similar
Novartis Cambridge (USA), United States Director
Same function Same seniority
45%similar
Gilead Sciences Shanghai Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd. Shanghai, China Director
Same function Same seniority
45%similar
Novartis East Hanover, United States Director
Same function Same seniority

Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

60%
Director International Commercialization Immunology (f/m/d)
Regeneron GmbH · Munich, Germany · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
45%
Director, Search & Evaluation (Platforms & AI)
Novartis · Cambridge (USA), United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
45%
Director, Data Governance and Contract Compliance, Regeneron Genetics Center (RGC)
Regeneron Genetics Center (USA) · Tarrytown, United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
45%
Oncology Strategy Director
Amgen Inc. · Remote, United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.