Sophion Bioscience is looking for an ambitious, customer-focused Vice President of Research & Development to lead and further develop our R&D organization.
This is a central leadership role with responsibility for Sophion’s technology strategy, product development execution, engineering capabilities, and R&D organization. You will ensure that priorities, resources, budgets, and development activities are managed with clarity and discipline, enabling us to deliver high-quality products that create measurable value for customers.
You will report to the CEO and as a member of the Senior Leadership Team, you will contribute to Sophion’s overall direction and continued growth.
About the role
As VP R&D, you will lead and develop Sophion’s multidisciplinary R&D organization, setting a clear direction and creating the structure, leadership, and ways of working needed to deliver on our ambitions.
You will translate product and portfolio priorities into clear R&D priorities, roadmaps, and resource commitments, ensuring alignment and accountability across the organization. Working closely with Innovation, Market & Product Management, you will ensure R&D brings strong judgment and execution discipline to the development of differentiated and commercially successful products.
A key part of your mandate will be to strengthen the R&D organization and its leadership. You will develop leaders, build effective teams, establish clear governance and decision-making, and create a culture of collaboration, ownership, and delivery.
You will attract, develop, and retain talented people and ensure that R&D continues to grow in capability, maturity, and performance.
About Us
Since 2000 Sophion Bioscience has pioneered Automated Patch Clamping for ion channel research. Today, we specialize in automated solutions for pre-clinical life sciences.
We work closely with academic institutions, contract research organizations, and leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies to create effective assays for screening and characterization. Our solutions empower the study of drug targets and candidates at the bench, reducing development time in discovery and reducing risk in clinical trials.
Through the continued development of our Automated Patch Clamp portfolio (QPatch & Qube) and our new Organ on a Chip platform (Ethica), we offer uncompromised data quality in a user-friendly environment, from assay setup to advanced data analysis.
We are driven by curiosity, teamwork, and a genuine passion for helping scientists succeed. We work in an open and collaborative environment where people share knowledge freely, support each other across roles and borders, and take pride in doing things properly. Our culture is informal, trusting, and grounded in respect — for colleagues, customers, and the science we enable. Even as we grow globally, we remain a company where people feel welcome, included, and able to make a meaningful impact.
We are headquartered in Denmark and have subsidiaries in the United States, Japan, and China.
What You'll Do
- Set and execute Sophion’s R&D and technology strategy in alignment with the company’s overall direction and priorities.
- Lead and develop the R&D organization, including its structure, leadership capabilities, ways of working, and competencies.
- Clearly communicate R&D priorities, progress, risks, and trade-offs across Sophion and to the Leadership Team and Board.
- Own the R&D budget and ensure resources are allocated to the activities that create the greatest strategic and customer value.
- Drive portfolio and resource management, translating product priorities into actionable development roadmaps and execution commitments while balancing short- and long-term priorities.
- Ensure customer needs inform development decisions by driving broad R&D engagement with the market, key opinion leaders, and key accounts.
- Strengthen development governance, decision-making, accountability, milestones, KPIs, and transparent reporting.
- Drive continuous improvement in product quality, performance, reliability, and maintainability.
- Work closely with Innovation, Market & Product Management to assess opportunities and convert agreed priorities into robust and commercially viable products.
- Maintain appropriate quality and compliance standards across R&D activities.
- Build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders
Who You Are
You are a strategic and hands-on R&D leader who can turn complex scientific and technical opportunities into high-quality products.
You bring clarity to complex situations and combine strong judgment with disciplined execution. You build strong teams, set clear priorities, use resources effectively, and deliver commitments.
You are engaging and decisive, and you build trust through transparency, communication, sound judgment, and consistent follow-through. You are comfortable moving between strategic questions and operational details without losing sight of R&D and company priorities.
We expect that you:
- Master’s degree in science, engineering, technology, or a related field.
- Proven R&D leadership experience in complex, multidisciplinary product development, leading leaders and sizeable teams of specialized engineers and scientists across hardware, software, firmware & bioscience.
- Strong communicator with the ability to set the agenda, shape strategy, and communicate in a clear direction across the organization and with customers and investors.
- Track record of taking products from concept to successful global market use.
- Experience from life science tools, diagnostics, MedTech, laboratory instrumentation, or similar quality-critical environments is preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to improve execution, prioritization, organizational capability, and product quality.
- Strong strategic, customer, communication, and decision-making skills, with the ability to work effectively across functions and deliver results.
- Strong interpersonal, negotiation, and problem-solving skills, with professional English proficiency.
How to Apply
Please apply via LinkedIn.
If you have questions about the role, you are welcome to contact Helene Fife on hef@Sophion.com
Start Date
As soon as possible.
We review applications on an ongoing basis and close the recruitment process once we have found the right candidate. If this opportunity excites you, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
