Job Description

The Director, Market Development, Population Health – APAC is responsible for driving commercial growth by expanding the total addressable market for Oxford Nanopore Technologies across the Asia Pacific region.

This role focuses on translating ONT’s unique sequencing capabilities into scalable, commercially impactful market opportunities by enabling the market and infrastructure required for Oxford Nanopore sequencing to become a routine and reimbursable component of population and clinical genomics across Asia-Pacific — instigating the consortia, initiatives, health directives, and evidence programs that create the conditions for adoption at scale.

Population and clinical genomics programs — with governments, health systems, research consortia, and clinical institutions — are the principal delivery mechanism through which that mandate is executed. The role spans the full population genomics continuum: from instigating and designing large-scale data programs, through the clinical implementation of sequencing into health system workflows, to ensuring the analytical infrastructure exists for genomic data to deliver diagnostic and therapeutic value across APAC’s diverse populations.

Working at the intersection of science, policy, and commercial strategy, this role partners closely with sales, marketing, product, medical, regulatory, and government affairs teams to accelerate adoption and long‑term revenue growth. Priority markets include Japan, Singapore, Korea, Australia, and China.

The successful candidate will operate initially as a senior architect and enabler, with a clear pathway to build and lead a multifunctional team as program revenue and geographic scope grow. Therefore, this role is suited to a highly self‑directed builder who thrives in ambiguous environments and can create momentum ahead of fully scaled organisational infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities and Duties: Market Expansion & Growth

• Identify, assess, and validate new market opportunities for ONT technologies across research, and clinical segments.
• Develop and execute commercial‑forward market development strategies with clear milestones and measurable growth outcomes.
• Champion Oxford Nanopore sequencing in disease areas and genomic contexts where its capabilities are most compelling — repeat expansions, structural variants, complex and repetitive loci, epigenomic applications — building the clinical and policy narratives that justify health system investment.
• Develop the Oxford Nanopore bioinformatics ecosystem across APAC, in partnership with ONT's bioinformatics teams — delivering training, reference pipelines, and community programs that build confidence and competence with ONT tools and create the analytical infrastructure required for adoption at scale.
• Provide structured input into future product, workflow, and portfolio roadmaps based on market needs and evidence gaps.

Partnerships, KOL & Ecosystem Development

• Build and manage KOL networks, professional society relationships, and standards body engagements (including GA4GH) across APAC — positioning ONT as the thought leader for population and clinical genomics in the region.
• Personally lead government and health system engagement across APAC — ministries of health, national research bodies, and public health agencies — instigating and designing the consortia, initiatives, and health directives that create the conditions for Oxford Nanopore sequencing to be adopted at population and clinical scale.
• Design, negotiate, and execute multi-year population and clinical genomics program frameworks spanning population sequencing, biobanking, rare disease diagnostics, oncology, pharmacogenomics, and clinical reporting.
• Lead community advocacy, education, and awareness initiatives to support market creation and adoption.
• Partner with academic, clinical, industry, and government stakeholders to strengthen ONT’s ecosystem presence.

Evidence Generation & Standards Shaping

• Define and execute evidence generation strategies, including gap analysis, to support new market entry and the establishment of population and health system program leadership across APAC.
• Build the APAC evidence base for Oxford Nanopore sequencing — initiating and supporting population-level studies across diverse ethnic groups and disease cohorts to generate the reference data, epigenomic profiles, and clinical proof points required to establish ONT's platform as routine across research and clinical settings, including the unique capabilities of ONT's sequencing in epigenomic analysis, structural variant resolution, and applications inaccessible to conventional approaches.
• Commission or co-design clinical utility studies, population cohort programs, and diagnostic validation studies with academic and clinical partners — translating outputs into compelling narratives for government, funders, and health systems.
• Drive adoption of Oxford Nanopore sequencing into standard clinical workflows across APAC — rare disease and paediatric genomics, oncology tumour profiling, pharmacogenomics-guided prescribing, and newborn screening.
• Represent ONT in national taskforces, scientific advisory boards, and policy forums — positioning the platform as the strategic partner of choice for population and clinical genomics across APAC.
• Translate evidence into compelling commercial and value‑based narratives for customers and stakeholders.

Clinical, Regulatory & Market Access Enablement

• Support regulatory, reimbursement, and market access pathways when entering or expanding clinical markets by applying knowledge of the region, leverage society engagement and standards.
• Work closely with regulatory, medical, and government affairs teams (where established), to align activities with policy and compliance requirements, being the key conduit with the customer in region and these teams to ensure clear objective are achieved and programs delivered.
• Enable customers operating in both regulated and unregulated environments through education and strategic guidance.

Commercial Enablement & Cross-functional leadership

• Maintain clear line of sight between program and market development activities and commercial outcomes — instrument placements, consumables pull-through, and multi-year supply agreements. Partner with regional commercial teams to support pipeline development, strategic deals, and complex opportunities.
• Identify, formalise, and structure service provider and CRO partnerships across priority APAC markets — including co-delivery of sequencing programs and market development studies — to extend reach without proportional direct headcount.
• Work with ONT's APAC commercial team to ensure national programs are structured, scoped, and priced appropriately, and contribute APAC market intelligence to global product and chemistry roadmaps.
• Enable sales and marketing teams through education, positioning, and strategic content tailored to emerging markets.
• Communicate market intelligence and customer insights to inform commercial strategy and execution.
• Operate effectively within a global, matrixed organisation, influencing across functions and seniority levels.

Leadership & Capability Development

• Provide leadership and strategic direction to market development activities across APAC.
• Support capability building through training, coaching, and knowledge transfer.
• Foster collaboration, accountability, and execution discipline across cross‑functional teams.
• Drive cross‑regional alignment and knowledge‑sharing, partnering with global Market Development leaders across APAC, EMEAI and AMR to ensure consistency of strategy, prioritisation, and execution as the global capability scales.
• Act as an early builder for the global Market Development function, contributing learnings, frameworks, and operating models that inform future role expansion across regions.

Core Competencies, Qualifications and Experience Core Competencies

• Health System & Program Architecture — proven ability to instigate, design, and deliver multi-year population and clinical genomics programs with complex governance, regulatory, clinical, and operational requirements.
• Clinical Implementation Leadership — ability to navigate health system adoption from evidence generation through to clinical workflow integration, reimbursement, and standard-of-care embedding.
• Government and Public-Sector Navigation — credibility and diplomatic skill in engaging ministries, regulatory authorities, funding bodies, and national health system leadership at executive level.
• Market Development and Evidence Generation — ability to identify and validate new market opportunities, design and execute evidence generation strategies, engage KOLs and scientific communities, and translate Oxford Nanopore's sequencing capabilities into commercially actionable market positions across APAC.
• Bioinformatics Ecosystem Development — ability to identify and address the bioinformatics capability gaps that constrain adoption of Oxford Nanopore sequencing and to design education, training, and community programs that build competence across the APAC genomics community, in partnership with ONT's bioinformatics teams.
• Commercial Orientation — ability to connect program development, government engagement, and market development directly to instrument placement, consumables revenue, and long-term commercial growth.
• Hands-On Execution — willingness and ability to operate as the primary driver across the full program and market development lifecycle without reliance on a large supporting team.
• Executive Communication — ability to present complex scientific, policy, and strategic content compellingly to government officials, clinical leaders, research bodies, and internal executives.

Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years designing, building, or leading national-scale genomics or precision medicine programs — with direct personal experience engaging governments, ministries of health, and national health system stakeholders across APAC.
• Deep understanding of Oxford Nanopore sequencing and the unique capabilities it offers — including structural variant resolution, epigenomic analysis, de novo assembly, and repeat expansion characterisation — and the genomic regions and disease contexts where the completeness and richness of ONT's sequencing data provides the greatest clinical and scientific advantage.
• Familiarity with Oxford Nanopore bioinformatics tools and workflows — basecalling, variant calling, assembly, and epigenomic analysis pipelines — sufficient to engage credibly with bioinformaticians and articulate the analytical requirements of ONT sequencing to clinical and policy audiences.
• Demonstrated experience in market development, evidence generation, or scientific affairs — including KOL engagement, population cohort study design, white paper creation, and society or standards body participation.
• Track record of connecting program and market development activity to commercial outcomes: instrument revenue, consumables pull-through, and multi-year supply partnerships.
• Proven ability to operate as a senior practitioner without a large supporting team — designing frameworks, presenting to ministries, managing complex negotiations, and driving delivery personally.
• Experience structuring and managing service provider, CRO, or channel partnerships to extend commercial reach and program delivery capacity across APAC.
• Established senior relationships and cultural fluency across at least two priority APAC markets: Japan, Singapore, Korea, Australia, China.
• Degree in Genomics, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Public Health, or a closely related scientific field. Additional qualifications in health economics, business, or data science advantageous.
• Hands‑on mindset, with willingness to contribute directly to content development, stakeholder education, and early market‑shaping activities.
• High resilience and adaptability, with the ability to progress initiatives even when cross‑functional resources are limited or evolving.
• Willingness to travel across the APAC region.