Healthcare and Life Sciences Executive Recruitment

Healthcare and Life Sciences Executive Recruitment

Exec Capital provides senior executive search for UK healthcare and life sciences firms across the full sub-sector range — pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, clinical research organisations, and healthcare services. Senior hiring in this sector is shaped by substantial regulatory complexity, clinical and scientific depth requirements, long product-development cycles, and complex stakeholder relationships across regulators, payers, clinicians and patients. The successful appointments are those calibrated to the specific sub-sector context from the start, with substantive understanding of the regulatory landscape (MHRA, FDA, EMA, NICE, CQC, HRA) built into the brief and assessment.

Our practice covers UK senior appointments across CEO, CFO, COO, CMO (Chief Medical Officer), Chief Scientific Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, Head of Regulatory Affairs and broader senior leadership at pharma firms, growth-stage biotech, listed and private medical devices businesses, digital health scale-ups, diagnostics firms, CROs and contract development organisations, and healthcare services groups. Every mandate is led personally by Adrian Lawrence FCA, with no junior account managers handling delivery.

Sub-sectors we cover

The healthcare and life sciences sector divides into seven sub-sectors, each with substantively different commercial dynamics, regulatory environments and candidate pools. Our practice covers senior appointments across all seven.

Pharmaceuticals. Established pharma, mid-market UK pharma, and the emerging-pharma segment. Senior hiring typically emphasises substantive scientific or clinical credentials alongside commercial track record.

Biotech. Earlier-stage drug discovery and development firms, often venture-backed or recently listed. Senior team quality is one of the dominant value drivers, with capital markets fluency frequently required for senior commercial and finance leadership.

Medical devices. Diagnostics, surgical instruments, monitoring equipment, implantable devices. Different regulatory pathway from pharma (MDR, FDA 510(k) and PMA), shorter product cycles, and different commercial dynamics around hospital procurement and clinician decision-making.

Digital health. Software, AI, telemedicine, digital therapeutics, health data platforms. The sub-sector that has grown fastest in the UK over the past decade. Senior hiring blends technology and digital credentials with healthcare domain expertise.

Diagnostics. Laboratory testing, imaging, in vitro diagnostics, genetic testing. Both clinical-laboratory firms and diagnostic device manufacturers.

Clinical research organisations (CROs) and contract development. Service providers to pharma and biotech for clinical trial conduct, regulatory work, and contract development manufacturing.

Healthcare services. Care home operators, private hospital groups, primary care groups, occupational health providers, and NHS-adjacent service businesses.

Senior roles we recruit

Our healthcare and life sciences practice covers senior appointments across the executive team and the boardroom.

Chief Executive Officer. Substantive sector experience plus the standard CEO dimensions — commercial leadership, board engagement, capital markets familiarity. Pharma and biotech CEOs typically come from senior commercial roles within the sector; digital health CEOs may come from technology backgrounds with healthcare domain expertise.

Chief Financial Officer. Healthcare and life sciences CFOs typically require sector-specific capital markets experience (where listed), regulatory financial reporting awareness, and (for pharma and biotech) experience of milestone-driven capital structures. Cross-portfolio with our sister firm FD Capital where the CFO seat is the primary specialism.

Chief Operating Officer. Particularly central in mid-market pharma and biotech firms approaching commercial scaling, and at healthcare services groups with substantial operational complexity.

Chief Medical Officer. The senior clinical leader, typically a qualified medical doctor with substantive clinical and pharmaceutical or device development experience. Distinct from the corporate Chief Marketing Officer.

Chief Scientific Officer. Often appointed alongside or in place of a clinical CMO, particularly in pre-commercial biotech and emerging pharma firms.

Chief Commercial Officer. Particularly central in established pharma, biotech approaching launch, and medical devices firms. The CCO leads market access, payer relationships, and commercial strategy.

Head of Regulatory Affairs. Senior regulatory leader with substantive prior regulatory authority engagement. The role is the firm’s senior interface with MHRA, FDA, EMA and equivalent bodies.

Non-Executive Directors and Chairs. Independent NEDs with substantive sector experience, including audit committee chairs, risk committee chairs, and Chairs of pre-IPO and listed life sciences firms.

How we work

We run healthcare and life sciences searches on a retained basis, with engagement running through to the candidate’s first day in role. The brief phase covers sub-sector specifics, regulatory dimensions, and the candidate pool framing before formal mandate begins. Market mapping draws on the substantive sector network plus targeted approaches to specialists at peer firms. Assessment combines structured competency interviews with case-style discussion of the firm’s specific commercial and regulatory situation.

Adrian leads every healthcare and life sciences mandate personally — from the brief, through market mapping and engagement, to the offer negotiation and the onboarding work that follows. There are no junior account managers running senior searches at Exec Capital.

Why Exec Capital for healthcare and life sciences

Three dimensions distinguish our healthcare and life sciences practice.

Sub-sector specificity worked through at the brief. We don’t approach healthcare as a single market. The pharma versus biotech distinction, the medical devices versus digital health distinction, the diagnostics versus CRO distinction — these all matter substantively to which candidates fit the role. The brief work at the front of every search calibrates the search to the specific sub-sector.

Substantive regulatory understanding. Strong candidates at this level expect senior search firms to understand the regulatory landscape — MHRA, FDA, EMA pathways; NICE health technology assessment; CQC frameworks for healthcare services; HRA governance for clinical research. Search firms that present generically lose strong candidates fast.

Principal-led delivery throughout. Adrian Lawrence FCA, ICAEW Verified Fellow and founder of Exec Capital, leads every senior healthcare and life sciences mandate personally. The relationship with the chair and CEO is a substantive one rather than a junior-account-manager hand-off.

Further reading

For our substantive guide to UK healthcare and life sciences senior hiring covering all seven sub-sectors, the senior team typically required, and the candidate pool, see our Healthcare and Life Sciences Executive Hiring Guide.

For role-specific senior hiring guides, see our CEO hiring guide, COO hiring guide, Chief Commercial Officer hiring guide, and the rest in our Knowledge Centre. For senior CFO appointments at healthcare and life sciences firms specifically, see our sister firm FD Capital.

For UK healthcare and life sciences regulatory frameworks referenced in our work, see the MHRA, the NICE, the CQC, and the HRA. For UK life sciences industry context, see the ABPI and the BIA.