About this opportunity
Make your mark for patients
We are looking for a QC External Partner Lead who is collaborative, strategic, and quality-driven to join our Patient Supply Quality Control team, based at our UCB campus located in Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium or in Bulle, Switzerland.
About the role
As QC External Partner Lead, you will play a key role in strengthening and governing UCB’s global external Quality Control network. You will build strong partnerships with third-party laboratories and service providers, lead governance and improvement initiatives, and drive projects that enhance quality, compliance and efficiency, across the Patient Supply Quality Control organization. You will work in a highly collaborative environment where your expertise, leadership, and problem-solving skills will help shape the future of QC operations.
Who you will work with
You will work closely with Quality Control laboratories, Patient Supply Quality teams, Procurement, Regulatory Affairs, and external partners worldwide. You will lead cross-functional committees, collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, and contribute to a culture of operational excellence, innovation, compliance, and continuous improvement.
What you will do
You will manage UCB’s global network of external QC partners and laboratory service providers.
You will lead governance activities and chair the Analytical Supplies & Services Network Committee.
You will negotiate and oversee contracts, budgets, and performance indicators with external partners.
You will identify risks, coordinate mitigation plans, and ensure regulatory and quality compliance.
You will lead transformation programs and projects that improve QC capabilities, processes, and efficiency.
You will foster a culture of operational excellence, empowerment, safety, and continuous improvement.
Interested? For this role, we are looking for the following education, experience, and skills:
Master’s degree in Science, Pharmacy, Chemistry, Biotechnology, or a related discipline.
Significant experience within pharmaceutical Quality Control and analytical testing environments.
Experience managing external partners such as CMOs, CROs, laboratories, or suppliers.
Strong project management, risk assessment, and cross-functional stakeholder leadership skills.
Excellent communication and negotiation abilities in both French and English.
Proven ability to drive quality improvements, governance, and decision-making in complex environments.
Internal applicants should be in their current job for at least 12 months, must meet performance standards and are not on formal corrective/disciplinary process (PIP), warning, final warning, or compliance warning letters within the last 12 months. Please inform your Manager or your Talent Partner before applying to any internal job opportunities.
At UCB, we’ve embraced a hybrid-first approach to work, bringing teams together in local hubs to foster collaborative curiosity. Unless expressly stated in the description, this role is hybrid with 40% of your time spent in the office, irrespective of your current contractual agreement. Should your current working arrangements differ, please contact your Talent Partner to discuss, before submitting your application.
UCB is an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions will be made without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable laws.
Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us on [email protected] . Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments; we will not be able to support you through this channel.
Requisition ID: 93640
Recruiter: Aude Remue
Hiring Manager: Xavier Huart
Talent Partner: Lucy Ardelaen
Job Level: MM II
Please consult HRAnswers for more information on job levels.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Quality role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 644 comparable Quality roles across 85 biopharma companies.
Salary context
110 of 644 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 644 comparable roles
+ 39 more countries
Seniority mix
309 of 644 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
0 of 644 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
No peers with a known therapeutic area yet.
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.