Senior Director, Commercial Finance

Overview

The organization is preparing for the potential commercial launch of cytisinicline and building the financial capabilities needed to support its next phase of growth. This role partners with commercial leadership to shape commercial strategy, guide investment decisions, and establish the financial discipline required to launch and scale an innovative treatment for nicotine dependence.

Reporting to the Chief Financial Officer, the Senior Director, Commercial Finance serves as the senior finance partner to the commercial leadership team. Responsibilities include commercial planning, forecasting, performance reporting, and investment analysis—providing a data-driven view of business performance and return on commercial investments.

Responsibilities

Commercial Planning and Forecasting

• Lead commercial financial planning, owning the annual operating plan, long-range plan, and rolling forecasts across commercial functions, including revenue, gross-to-net, and commercial operating expenses.
• Develop revenue forecasts and maintain driver-based models covering demand, prescriptions, pricing, payer mix, channel dynamics, and inventory.
• Translate commercial strategy into financial targets, resource plans, and budgets to support accountability and business performance.
• Conduct scenario and sensitivity analyses on key business drivers to support launch planning, pricing decisions, and commercial investment priorities.

Sales and Commercial Finance Partnership

• Serve as a trusted finance partner to commercial leadership, connecting business strategy, operating performance, and financial outcomes.
• Partner with Sales leadership on field force sizing, territory deployment, incentive compensation design, and quota setting.
• Work with Marketing and Market Access to evaluate brand budgets, payer contracting economics, and patient support program costs.
• Challenge assumptions and recommend actions that maximize return on commercial investment.

Performance Reporting and Analytics

• Lead monthly and quarterly business reviews, including variance analysis against plan and forecast, key performance drivers, and recommended actions.
• Develop and maintain dashboards tracking revenue, demand, productivity, and spend efficiency.
• Prepare executive-level materials, including commercial financial analyses and presentations for executive leadership, the Board of Directors, and investor communications.
• Partner with Accounting on commercial accruals, gross-to-net reserves, and month-end close activities for commercial cost centers.

Systems, Processes, and Controls

• Strengthen financial planning tools, data infrastructure, and reporting processes as the commercial organization grows.
• Partner with Commercial Operations and IT to integrate data across CRM, specialty pharmacy, claims, and syndicated data sources.
• Establish and reinforce spend controls, purchase approval processes, and adherence to company policies.

Commercial Program ROI and Investment Evaluation

• Design and own a standardized ROI framework to evaluate promotional, field, digital, patient support, payer, and HCP engagement programs.
• Define success measures by establishing baselines, success metrics, and attribution methods before programs launch.
• Evaluate program impact on incremental effects on demand, new patient starts, persistence, and revenue using appropriate methods (including test-and-control, pre/post analysis, and marketing-mix approaches where applicable).
• Track performance against business cases by comparing actual program spending and outcomes with original assumptions and providing regular performance updates.
• Recommend investment adjustments, including reallocating resources from lower-return activities to higher-return programs, with recommendations to scale, modify, or discontinue investments.
• Build business cases for new programs, vendors, and channel investments, including expected costs, revenue impact, payback periods, risks, and key assumptions.
• Implement stage-gate evaluation for new initiatives as pilots with defined success criteria, milestones, and decision points.
• Evaluate portfolio trade-offs by comparing new proposals against existing commercial investments to support informed resource allocation.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.
• 12+ years of progressive FP&A or commercial finance experience, including 5+ years in a leadership role.
• Direct experience supporting sales and commercial organizations, ideally within biopharma or life sciences.
• Proven track record developing ROI frameworks and business cases to evaluate commercial or marketing investments.
• Advanced financial modeling skills, including revenue forecasting, driver-based planning, and scenario analysis.
• Strong working knowledge of gross-to-net, payer dynamics, and commercial operating models.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, including experience presenting financial analyses and recommendations to executive leadership teams and Boards.
• Strategic thinking and sound business judgment, with the ability to translate complex financial analyses into clear, actionable recommendations.
• Ability to balance hands-on analytical work with strategic partnership in a growing, evolving organization.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA, CPA, or CFA.
• Experience supporting a U.S. product launch or a commercial organization during its early stages of growth.
• Familiarity with promotional response analysis, marketing-mix modeling, or test-and-control measurement methodologies.
• Hands-on experience with financial planning and business intelligence tools such as Adaptive, Anaplan, Power BI, or Tableau.
• Experience working with prescription, claims, and specialty pharmacy data.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation

• Anticipated base salary range: $260,000–$280,000 USD annually.
• The range is a good-faith estimate; actual compensation will be determined based on relevant experience, skills, qualifications, and internal equity.
• Eligible for an annual target bonus and equity compensation as determined by the company’s compensation committee.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k)-retirement plan
• Participation in the Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Company-paid life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage
• Paid time off and paid company holidays

Location & Travel

• Remote position; candidates may reside anywhere in the continental United States.
• Travel up to 10% for conferences and company meetings.