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Behind Biotech: Heidi Hoppe

Collaboration amid the unknown: Heidi’s path to partnership in oncology research

When Heidi Hoppe began her career more than two decades ago, she didn’t plan on becoming the Senior Director of Project Delivery for Biotech at one of the world’s largest CROs. She hadn’t planned on being in the industry at all. She was finishing nursing school when her mother, who worked in biopharma, nudged her toward the industry. 

Her mother’s referral directed her to an agency that gave Heidi her first industry placement. She organised paper case report forms at a pharmaceutical company jointly operated by Takeda and Abbott. Within six months, she was authoring Phase 1 protocols. Heidi’s drive to grow and tackle challenges was the springboard for the next 26 years of her professional life, pushing her into new fields, across biopharma and CRO organisations, and into biotech and oncology specialisations. Her journey has also been shaped by personal experience, and a profound appreciation for what it means to work together in service of patients.

Reorienting research

Early in Heidi’s clinical research career, a family health crisis reoriented her professional outlook and brought a new perspective to her work. Heidi’s niece was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. “She was diagnosed two weeks before her third birthday. Now she is cancer free and turning 27,” Heidi recalls. “Watching her go through treatment changed my understanding of research from the patient and caregiver perspective. It gave me a more holistic view.” 

That experience, combined with a desire to stay closely involved in her niece’s care, led Heidi to seek remote opportunities and ultimately influenced her move into oncology-focused roles. Her professional and personal worlds converged in a way that sharpened her sense of purpose and deepened her resolve to improve outcomes for patients through more thoughtful, effective trial execution. 

Collaboration as the foundation

Today, Heidi spends most of her time focused on one thing: effective partnership. In her role in Project Delivery and having come from Clinical Operations, she understands the value of a truly collaborative relationship with sponsors and how it can be the lynchpin of a smooth, efficient project execution amid a complex clinical development process. 

“We are in an industry that constantly faces challenges,” she says. “But when you have a partner sitting across the table from you instead of a vendor, you move through those challenges more effectively. That is the mindset I try to instil in every engagement.”

Rather than defaulting to transactional sponsor-CRO dynamics, Heidi and her teams prioritise partnership models that enable transparency, mutual accountability and shared goals. Her approach is grounded in establishing clear communication pathways and governance structures that anticipate issues before they escalate.

In a recent example, a sponsor engaged ICON to help turn around a struggling program. The first step to success? “We listened. Really listened,” says Heidi. The team had to get a clear picture of the pain points and then co-created a governance model that specifically addressed their concerns. The impact was immediate, and it improved delivery and trust across an entire study portfolio. 

These are the kind of wins that energise Heidi. Although she spends most of her time on the phone with clients and project teams, aligning, problem-solving and looking for ways to move forward together, seeing the progress they make with true collaboration is incredibly rewarding. 

Making room for the unexpected

Heidi’s strong sense of relationship building benefits sponsors, but it has also made a friend of uncertainty. Uncertainty is the only certainty, as the adage goes, and Heidi is well adapted for it. 

“If you have an aversion to change, this is probably the wrong industry,” she says. “You have to be willing to evolve and bring your team with you.”

This sense of openness—to new ideas, new roles and new challenges—has shaped her career and gives her the ability to support sponsors as they navigate the industry. And the industry is certainly on a trajectory for further transformation. Continued macroeconomic pressures will influence development strategies, while technologies such as AI offer promise for enhanced efficiency and decision-making. In the face of these changes, Heidi remains optimistic. 

“At the end of the day, biotech sponsors are hiring us for our expertise,” she notes. Leveraging that expertise requires trust. It requires dialogue. And it requires remembering that our shared mission is to get therapies to patients faster and more responsibly. 

Heidi’s career started with a dose of chance, has been propelled by ambition, redirected by familial hardship, and catalysed by collaboration and a willingness to embrace the unexpected. As she knows well in her role with ICON Biotech, sometimes it’s the unexpected that pushes us forward the most.

 

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