Client - Ascella Health
Role - Director of Business Development.
Overview
Ascella Health is an established multibillion turnover US firm who are leading the way in speciality service provision in Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs.
At the end of 2023 the company approached RMG through a mutually independent adviser seeking to attract a high-profile individual to lead their efforts commercially in the UK & EU as Director of Business Development.
The principal challenge for this strategic hire was the strict demand to bring somebody into the business who both carried the credibility of experience in the particular nuance of the market specifically speciality pharmacy experience in rare and orphan drug, as well as finding and assessing those individuals to fit in with the company’s culture,
The challenge was further increased as despite being a multi-billion-dollar turnover company globally, the UK & EU operation was nascent, having only just moved into their Manchester HQ earlier this year. This required someone to step out of a larger, more structured pharmaceutical business into the uncertainty of a new venture, with very high expectations.
The delivery of the project was highly successful all around. RMG took a proactive role in the process supporting the company with all elements of the interview rounds which included being on site – akin to an inhouse recruiter. The project was highly complex with more than 100 candidates identified through an initial market mapping stage, but it is RMG’s experience of the pharma industry which meant the team were able to move swiftly and efficiently through a robust interview process delivering seven highly qualified shortlisted candidates, many of whom were off market.
Since the appointment has been made Ascella has been able to move onto other strategic M&A projects, comfortable in the knowledge that the right person has come in to lead their UK/EU commercial efforts.
“RMG and Giles in particular were superb. He is exceptionally well networked with excellent knowledge of the Pharma industry and therefore able to run an efficient recruitment process, drawing on his network of established Pharma Leaders with ease. Giles takes time to clearly understand both the client brief and the drivers of the candidate and is able to match requirements perfectly.
He is highly proactive in the process itself, joining our team to assist in the interviews and making valuable contributions in testing candidates experience and skills which we thoroughly appreciated. Having reflected on the process I can confidently say that we were able to find a high-quality candidate as a direct result of using RMG and Giles’ experience and I would certainly engage his services again”