JB Strategy Partners — Fractional Corporate Development
Life sciences companies at pivotal moments need executive-caliber strategy and execution. We embed as a senior partner — across capital raising, business development, investor relations, and corporate strategy — without the overhead of a permanent seat.
The Challenge
Most life sciences companies grow through moments that demand precise, senior execution. Financing rounds. Partnership negotiations. Investor repositioning. These windows are narrow. The wrong support — or no support — is expensive.
Full-time executive hires cost too much for needs that cycle in and out. But junior support leaves critical gaps at the worst possible moments.
Most advisory relationships produce decks and memos. The work — materials, processes, stakeholder management — still lands on an already-stretched leadership team.
Banking relationship over here. BD advisor over there. IR consultant somewhere else. No one is connecting the strategic picture across all of them.
Positioning evolves. Narratives get inconsistent. Materials fall out of date. The story investors hear depends on who's telling it that week.
"A scaling biotech shouldn't have to choose between underpowered execution and overbuilt overhead."
The problem JB Strategy Partners was built to solve
How It Works
We start by understanding your near-term priorities — financing timeline, partnering goals, investor positioning, or company-building gaps — and clarify exactly where senior execution will matter most.
Connor works as a team member, not a vendor. That means attending meetings, building materials, managing processes, and communicating directly with investors, partners, and board members as needed.
Engagement intensity adjusts as priorities shift. Deep support during a raise or partnership process. Lighter ongoing work between major inflection points. No rigid retainers, no scope creep.
What We Do
Every engagement combines high-level strategic judgment with hands-on execution. We cover the full corporate development function — capital raising, partnerships, investor relations, and company-building — under one relationship.
From equity narrative development through investor targeting, process management, and diligence support. We help companies enter financing moments with sharper positioning and more efficient execution — whether it's a Series B, crossover, or public offering preparation.
Partnering strategy, counterparty identification, deal structure analysis, and negotiation support. We bring the commercial judgment and process discipline to turn partnership conversations into signed transactions.
IR infrastructure buildout, messaging frameworks, investor targeting, conference preparation, and ongoing stakeholder communications. We help companies tell a consistent, compelling story at every investor touchpoint.
Pipeline prioritization, portfolio analysis, competitive positioning, and strategic planning support. We provide the senior perspective boards and management teams need at critical decision points — without a prolonged consulting engagement.
Fractional CFO, CBO, and IR-level support during scaling phases. Board prep, governance structuring, and the organizational infrastructure companies need to operate at the next level — before they can build the full team.
Why JB Strategy Partners
A VP of Corporate Development or Chief Business Officer is the right long-term answer. But the right candidate takes months to find, requires a substantial compensation package, and comes with fixed overhead regardless of workload. For companies in between moments — or building toward them — that math rarely works.
Full-Time Hire
JB Strategy Partners
Banks and formal advisors are best suited for discrete, transaction-driven mandates. They bring process and relationships. But they typically don't sit inside the company, don't own the materials, and don't integrate across the broader corporate development picture. Their incentive is the transaction, not your company's ongoing strategic clarity.
Investment Bank or Advisor
JB Strategy Partners
Management consulting firms deliver structured analysis and frameworks. The output is often excellent. The execution still falls on you. JBSP combines strategic thinking with the hands-on operator experience to carry work from concept to completion — as a working team member, not a project team that exits after the readout.
Consulting Firm
JB Strategy Partners
Connor Bernstein
Founder, JB Strategy Partners
15+ years in life sciences capital markets and corporate development. Deep CNS/neuroscience focus. Experience spanning financing, BD, IR, and cross-border capital markets — including a full ASX-to-Nasdaq redomicile.
About Connor
Connor Bernstein has spent his career at the intersection of finance, strategy and execution in life sciences, with particular depth in CNS and neuroscience. He started in biopharma investment banking — advising on equity raises, M&A, and strategic transactions at firms including RBC Capital Markets, Perella Weinberg Partners, Guggenheim Securities, and Piper Jaffray — and transitioned to in-house roles where he took direct ownership of capital raising, business development, and investor communications.
That combination of capital markets rigor and operator experience is what JBSP is built around. Connor knows how to think about different options, and what banks want to see. He knows what investors ask in a diligence meeting. He knows how to build the materials, run the process, and manage the stakeholders — not as an outside observer, but as someone who has done it. One chapter of that work stands out: leading Bionomics through a full cross-border capital markets sequence — US crossover financing, Nasdaq IPO via ADR, ASX delisting, and full redomicile to the United States — one of the more complete sequences of its kind.
JB Strategy Partners was founded for life sciences companies that face high-stakes corporate development needs without the bench strength to handle them well. Connor's role is to close that gap — with senior judgment, practical execution, and the flexibility to engage at whatever intensity the moment requires.
"The best time to have senior corporate development support isn't when the process has already started. It's before the window opens."
Ideal Fit
Strong fit
Likely not a fit
Common Questions
Whether you're approaching a financing round, evaluating a partnership, or building out your investor strategy — a conversation costs nothing.
Schedule a ConversationWhat We Do
Every engagement covers both dimensions: the senior strategic judgment to set the right course, and the execution capacity to actually carry it across the finish line. Under one relationship.
From first equity narrative to closing, we support companies across the full financing cycle — public and private, equity and structured instruments. The work spans investor positioning, materials development, investor targeting, process management, diligence coordination, and stakeholder communications.
Companies approaching a financing round often spend the first several months just getting organized — refining the story, building updated materials, figuring out who to target and in what order. We compress that preparation phase and help companies enter the market with sharper positioning and more efficient process discipline.
Connor's banking background means he understands what institutional investors and crossover funds look for, how diligence processes run, and how to structure the narrative for the specific audience at hand — whether that's a Series B, a PIPE, a royalty financing, or an IPO preparation. His in-house experience includes leading a full ASX-to-Nasdaq cross-border listing and redomicile, making JBSP one of the few fractional practices with genuine end-to-end cross-border capital markets experience.
Strategic partnership identification, commercial deal structure analysis, counterparty outreach and relationship management, term sheet review, and negotiation support. We work across in-licensing, out-licensing, co-development agreements, and regional partnerships.
Business development opportunities often get missed not because companies lack assets, but because they lack the bandwidth and structured process to pursue them effectively. We bring the commercial judgment to identify the right opportunities, the execution discipline to manage the conversations, and the analytical rigor to evaluate deal terms against the right benchmarks.
We also help companies build the BD infrastructure — relationship maps, partnering narratives, data room preparation — that puts them in a strong position when conversations become serious.
IR function buildout for companies moving toward or already in the public markets. Messaging frameworks, investor targeting and outreach, conference preparation, investor day design, shareholder communications, and ongoing relationship management.
For pre-commercial and early commercial biotech companies, investor relations is often under-resourced relative to its strategic importance. The equity story drifts. Materials go stale. Investor relationships become reactive rather than proactive. We bring structure, consistency, and senior ownership to the IR function — helping companies build the investor credibility that supports both near-term valuation and long-term financing flexibility.
Pipeline prioritization, portfolio rationalization, competitive landscape analysis, strategic planning support, and board-level strategic communications. We help management teams and boards think clearly about the decisions that define long-term company trajectory.
Strategic decisions in biotech — which program to advance, which indication to prioritize, how to frame the portfolio for investors — sit at the intersection of science, capital markets, and competitive dynamics. We bring the analytical and commercial perspective to pressure-test assumptions, frame options clearly, and help leadership teams present strategic choices to their boards with confidence.
Fractional CFO, CBO, and IR-level support during organizational scaling. Board and governance structure, executive team gap coverage, hiring support for permanent corporate development roles, and the organizational infrastructure that enables a company to operate at its next stage.
Companies often grow faster than their organizational infrastructure can keep up with. A company preparing for a Series C may not have the board composition, the financial reporting discipline, or the senior corporate development function it needs to succeed in that round. We help companies build toward the right organizational state — and provide the senior coverage in the meantime.
When the time comes to hire a permanent VP of Corporate Development or Chief Business Officer, we can help scope the role, run the search, and ensure a clean handoff.
Most engagements start with a conversation about where your company is and where it needs to go. We'll work out the right scope together.
Start a ConversationAbout Connor Bernstein
Connor Bernstein
Founder, JB Strategy Partners
Connor Bernstein started his career in biopharma investment banking, with a particular focus on CNS and neuroscience companies. Over more than a decade across RBC Capital Markets, Perella Weinberg Partners, Guggenheim Securities, Piper Jaffray, and Houlihan Lokey, he developed deep fluency in how institutional investors think, how financing processes run, and how life sciences companies are valued at different stages of development.
That foundation gave him a clear view of where corporate strategy meets capital markets — and where most companies leave opportunity on the table. The equity story doesn't match what investors actually need to hear. The materials aren't diligence-ready. The process starts too late. The BD opportunity is there, but no one has the bandwidth to execute it properly.
Connor moved from advising companies to working inside them, most notably at Bionomics, an Australian CNS-focused biotech where he led the company's full cross-border capital markets transition. That process spanned US crossover financing, the formation of a US subsidiary, a Nasdaq IPO via ADR structure, ASX delisting, and ultimately full redomicile of the company to the United States. It is one of the more complete sequences of its kind, and it gave Connor firsthand experience in the regulatory, structural, and investor relations complexity that few practitioners have navigated end-to-end.
He subsequently worked in an in-house and advisory capacity at OVAX / ARMR Sciences, continuing to take direct ownership of capital raising, business development, and investor communications. The result is a perspective that doesn't fit neatly into either "banker" or "operator" — and that's the point. JBSP is built to bring both dimensions to every engagement.
One practical outcome of Connor's Australian work is a working knowledge of the Australian R&D Tax Incentive — a refundable tax offset of up to 43.5% on eligible R&D expenditure available to companies with Australian subsidiaries. For early-stage US biotechs with meaningful R&D spend, the program can represent significant non-dilutive capital. Connor works with Australian counsel to help US companies evaluate whether the structure makes sense and how to implement it correctly.
Most life sciences companies at Series A through mid-commercial stage have real corporate development needs that don't fit the available support options. Full-time hires are too expensive and too rigid. Banks show up for transactions and disappear after close. Consultants deliver frameworks and leave execution to someone else.
JBSP is designed to be a different kind of answer: one senior partner who embeds in the company, works across the full corporate development function, and stays accountable for execution — not just advice. The engagement scales with what the company actually needs, not with a billing model built around firm overhead.
"The moments that define a company's trajectory in biotech are usually narrow. The right preparation — and the right senior support — makes those moments go better."
A brief conversation is the best way to understand whether JBSP is the right fit for where your company is and where it's going.
Start a ConversationWho We Work With
JBSP is a focused practice. We work best in specific situations, and we are direct about where we're likely to add the most value — and where we're probably not the right fit.
Ideal Clients
Series A through crossover companies preparing for their next capital raise. Often strongest value in the 3–6 months before the formal process begins — sharpening the equity story, organizing materials, and building the investor targeting strategy.
Companies in the public markets that need a cleaner investor narrative, more proactive investor relationship management, or better preparation for key investor events.
Preclinical through commercial-stage companies seeking to out-license an asset, execute a co-development agreement, or build the infrastructure for a formal partnering process.
Companies that know they need a VP of Corporate Development or Chief Business Officer — but aren't yet ready to make the permanent hire or are between searches. JBSP bridges the gap.
When We're Probably Not the Right Fit
Large organizations with fully staffed corporate development, business development, and investor relations functions. Our model is designed to complement or fill gaps — not to supplement an already complete team.
Companies seeking pure execution support with no strategic component. We bring both dimensions to every engagement. If the need is primarily project management or administrative support, we're not the right level of resource.
Engagements where the primary need is GxP, regulatory, or clinical development expertise. Corporate development is our focus. We're a complement to — not a substitute for — clinical and regulatory advisors.
Companies outside the life sciences industry. Our expertise is specific to biotech and life sciences. The capital markets, regulatory environment, and BD dynamics are distinct enough that we don't attempt to generalize.
A short conversation is the fastest way to find out. No commitment, no formality — just a direct discussion about your company's needs and whether we're well-suited to help.
Schedule a ConversationGet in Touch
Whether you're approaching a financing round, evaluating a partnership opportunity, building out investor relations, or exploring whether fractional corporate development support makes sense for your company — this is the right starting point.
Direct Contact