About Us
Kardigan is a heart health company working to make cardiovascular disease preventable, curable and no longer the leading cause of death in the world.
It is Kardigan’s mission to develop multiple targeted treatments in parallel that bring people with cardiovascular diseases to the cures they deserve.
Led by Tassos Gianakakos, Jay Edelberg, M.D., Ph.D., and Bob McDowell, Ph.D., Kardigan’s co-founders have reunited after leading MyoKardia to discover and develop mavacamten, the first cardiac myosin inhibitor, resulting in an acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2020.
We have a cutting-edge discovery and translational research platform, a pipeline of late-stage candidates, and an industry-leading team that is driven to improve the lives of patients.
At Kardigan, we are motivated by our values which guide how we work, interact, and achieve our goals. Driven by patients and their families, we are deeply committed to improving the lives of patients and prioritizing their needs above all else. We believe in being authentic—leading with truth to bring out the best in others by creating an environment where every person knows they will be fully accepted. With an eagerness to learn, we encourage the highest levels of curiosity and are open to changing our minds. We are committed to winning as a team with urgency, excellence, and intention, and support each other no matter what role we play or where we sit. Lastly, we strive to enable the impossible because patients are counting on us. We are not afraid to take risks to unlock innovation and advance scientific discoveries.
These values are the foundation of our work, empowering us to make a real difference, every day.
About the Job
Job Title: Vice President, Product Strategy
Level: Vice President (VP)
Department: Product Strategy
Hiring Manager: Chief Strategy Officer
Location: Princeton, NJ or Chicago, IL
Classification: Hybrid – On-site 4 days per week (Mon to Thurs)
Travel: Approximately 20–25% across Kardigan’s South San Francisco, Princeton, and Chicago sites
About the Team
The Vice President, Product Strategy will play a key role in defining and driving the end-to-end product strategy across the Kardigan’s portfolio. The successful individual sits at the intersection of science, clinical development, commercial, and corporate strategy, translating pipeline assets into clear product visions, value propositions, and lifecycle strategies that maximize patient impact and enterprise value.
The VP Product Strategy partners closely with Global Program Heads (GPHs) to ensure product strategy decisions are grounded in rigorous data, differentiated positioning, and long-term portfolio value creation. This includes working across Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Commercial, and Business Development functions.
The VP Product Strategy will lead a team of individuals who serve as either product strategy leads for individual products or as centralized capability groups (“CoEs”) such as competitive intelligence, forecasting and market access.
Job Overview
Kardigan is seeking a Vice President, Product Strategy to define and drive end-to-end product strategy across Kardigan’s portfolio of investigational cardiovascular therapies. Reporting to the Chief Strategy Officer, this leader sits at the intersection of science, clinical development, commercial, and corporate strategy — translating pipeline assets into clear product visions, value propositions, and lifecycle strategies designed to serve patients and build long-term enterprise value.
The Vice President, Product Strategy partners closely with Global Program Heads to ensure product strategy decisions are grounded in rigorous data, differentiated positioning, and long-term portfolio value creation, working across Clinical Development, Medical Affairs, Regulatory, Commercial, and Business Development. This is a build-and-lead role: the Vice President will lead a team of product strategy leads for individual programs and will design, build, and lead centralized capability groups (Centers of Excellence, or CoEs) in competitive intelligence, forecasting, and market access. Early priorities include establishing integrated product strategies and target product profiles for prioritized programs, standing up the portfolio factbase and decision-support processes that feed Kardigan’s portfolio governance, and making the first key CoE hires.
This position is a strategy leadership role for Kardigan’s drug portfolio; it is distinct from technology or software product management. All Kardigan product candidates are investigational; references to launch and commercialization describe readiness planning for potential future approvals.
Main Responsbilities
Product Positioning & Development Plan Support
- Lead the development and ongoing evolution of integrated product strategies across all pipeline assets — and any future marketed products — from early clinical stages through lifecycle management.
- Define target product profiles (TPPs), value propositions, and differentiation strategies informed by unmet need, competitive landscape, and clinical data, and ensure cross-functional alignment on the evidence required to support them.
- Partner with Clinical Development and Medical Affairs to inform trial design, endpoint selection, and evidence-generation strategy aligned to product and portfolio goals.
- Drive scenario planning and trade-off decisions across indications, lines of therapy, geographies, and lifecycle opportunities, and prioritize product expansion opportunities including recommended timing for initiating new programs.
- Lead competitive intelligence and market landscaping to inform strategic choices and risk mitigation, and lead contingency planning where competitive or clinical developments warrant it.
- Define and continue to refine the strategy for potential global commercialization of the portfolio.
Investment Decision-Making
- Serve as a strategic advisor to the Chief Strategy Officer, Global Program Heads, and Chief Executive Officer on product- and portfolio-level decisions, providing updates, insights, and well-framed recommendations that inform enterprise decisions.
- Support the Global Program Heads in developing recommendations for program-related investments — stage-gate decisions, new indications, new formulations, and development plan modifications — including the financial modeling and program valuation that underpin them.
- Work closely with the portfolio management team to ensure a quality, timely factbase for portfolio decision-making and appropriate framing and communication of recommendations to Kardigan’s portfolio governance forums; drive teams to make effective, efficient decisions and lead resolution of cross-functional conflicts on strategic questions.
- Establish and manage the key performance indicators and impact measures for each integrated product strategy, partnering with functional heads on resource trade-off decisions to deliver the highest portfolio impact.
- Support business development activities including asset evaluation, due diligence, and integration of acquired programs into the portfolio.
Launch Planning
- Create and own the overall cross-functional launch-readiness plan for each prioritized program, in anticipation of potential future approvals, and drive decision-making and execution on the activities most critical to launch readiness.
- Partner with Commercial to ensure launch readiness, positioning, and lifecycle strategies are cohesive and evidence-based.
- Collaborate with Regulatory and Market Access to anticipate regulatory pathway considerations, pricing considerations, and reimbursement dynamics.
Team & Capability Building
- Define the required Centers of Excellence and the plan and timeframe to build them; lead hiring and talent development for the CoEs, ensuring they effectively support both global product teams and business development activities.
- Manage, mentor, and develop product strategy leads; provide guidance on the most critical issues across the portfolio and foster a culture of accountability, rigor, and collaboration.
About You
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree from an accredited four-year college or university in a scientific, health, or business discipline, with strong scientific literacy.
- 12+ years of experience in biotech, pharmaceutical, or life sciences strategy consulting with progressive leadership responsibility, including 5+ years leading product, portfolio, or asset strategy teams and experience operating at the intersection of development, medical, and commercial functions.
- Demonstrated experience leading product or asset strategy across clinical development stages.
- Proven experience working cross-functionally across R&D, Commercial, Regulatory, and Market Access, and translating scientific and clinical data into differentiated, evidence-based product strategies.
- Experience with portfolio management, financial modeling, and program valuation.
- Direct people-management experience, including leading and managing a product strategy or adjacent team.
- Deep understanding of clinical development, regulatory pathways, competitive dynamics, and commercialization considerations.
- Ability to work on-site four days per week in Princeton, New Jersey or Chicago, Illinois, with flexibility to travel approximately 20–25% across Kardigan’s South San Francisco, Princeton, and Chicago sites.
Preferred Qualifications
- Advanced degree (PhD, MD, PharmD, or MBA).
- Pre-launch and launch experience strongly preferred, including prior involvement with launch-readiness planning, pricing and reimbursement planning, and evidence-generation strategy development.
- Experience building and scaling a product strategy or adjacent function, including team development and governance frameworks.
- Proven ability to lead workstreams and influence cross-functionally to drive alignment without direct authority.
- Strong strategic and analytical capability, with the ability to anticipate operational issues and risks and proactively recommend mitigations and solutions.
- Excellent strategic framing and communication skills, including crisp executive-level presentations; comfortable interacting with individuals at all levels of the organization and presenting to senior and external audiences.
- Initiative and a continuous-improvement mindset, with demonstrated experience managing across multiple functions and teams.
- Strong work ethic with a sense of urgency and a demonstrated ability to consistently deliver high-quality output; detail-oriented with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
- Track record of attracting, retaining, and developing strong talent and creating an environment where people are motivated to do their best work.
- Resilience and comfort operating in a fast-paced, dynamic, entrepreneurial environment, with a strong patient-centric orientation and commitment to ensuring product strategies ultimately serve patients and their families.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Kardigan is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities throughout the application and employment process.
