(Senior) Director, External Drug Discovery

Job Description:

Are you an innovative and strategic leader with a deep understanding of drug discovery and development? Do you have an entrepreneurial mindset and commercial awareness? If yes, then read more as we are seeking a Director within External Drug Discovery to join our dynamic team! Drive the future of healthcare with us. Apply today!

The position

As a (Senior) Director in our Cardiorenal department, you will be actualising Novo Nordisk’s externalisation agenda by driving pipeline impact from alliances, research collaborations and business development activities. You will contribute to our drug pipeline by using your comprehensive knowledge of early discovery and development, R&ED’s (Research & Early Development) strategic priorities, and external collaborations. In addition, you will use your expertise to determine the most impactful areas in which external collaborations can be used to develop novel insights that can enhance the early project portfolio or accelerate our path to project maturation.

Some of your main tasks will include:

  • Taking project leadership and oversight roles on drug programs run in external alliances and arising from external discovery efforts
  • Using external resources to accelerate drug discovery projects, working with project leads to identify bandwidth or capability gaps that hinder the projects and presenting them at internal governance
  • Participating in due diligence for external assets 
  • Working with data science and genomics expertise to actualise the impact of big data and machine learning
  • Driving collaborations within Cardiovascular Research supporting the agenda of the Corporate Vice President
  • Owning and driving key external collaborations independently with global and cross-organisational impact 
  • Qualifications

    You hold an MD or PhD in Cell Biology, Pharmacology, Bioinformatics or related area, or minimum 5 years of equivalent experience in early drug discovery and demonstrated experience in providing technical strategic understanding within pharma or biotech industry.

    To be successful in this position, we expect you to have:

  • Demonstratable experience of working in close collaboration with in vivo and in vitro teams
  • Strong project management experience and in-depth disease understanding and data drug discovery skills to drive projects
  • Commercial awareness in the context of biotech/pharma drug discovery and development
  • Experience in driving innovation through the application of state-of-the-art tools
  • Ability to manage high business complexity with conflicting interests
  • On a personal level, you have high level of personal integrity and confidentiality, negotiation skills and strong interpersonal skills to manage diverse stakeholders. You are able to advise across all levels of the organization and manage priorities independently. You uphold high personal integrity and confidentiality, while also being a team player and collaborator. Additionally, you possess strong process facilitation and change management skills. A resilient and flexible mindset is also crucial to navigate challenges and adapt to changes in a fast-paced environment.

    About the department

    The position is anchored in Cardiorenal Research within Global Drug Discovery, Novo Nordisk A/S. As part of Novo Nordisk’s strategy within chronic metabolic diseases, we are focusing on target identification, target validation, and pre-clinical characterisation of new assets intended to become novel treatment options for patients living with cardiometabolic diseases. In close collaboration with our colleagues, we are working in an organ-centric and disease agnostic manner to develop, characterise, and utilise in vitro tools to elucidate mode-of-action and profiling of novel biology and molecules for early evaluation of drug candidates.

    Are you an innovative and strategic leader with a deep understanding of drug discovery and development? Do you have an entrepreneurial mindset and commercial awareness? If yes, then read more as we are seeking a Director within External Drug Discovery to join our dynamic team! Drive the future of healthcare with us. Apply today!

    The position

    As a (Senior) Director in our Cardiorenal department, you will be actualising Novo Nordisk’s externalisation agenda by driving pipeline impact from alliances, research collaborations and business development activities. You will contribute to our drug pipeline by using your comprehensive knowledge of early discovery and development, R&ED’s (Research & Early Development) strategic priorities, and external collaborations. In addition, you will use your expertise to determine the most impactful areas in which external collaborations can be used to develop novel insights that can enhance the early project portfolio or accelerate our path to project maturation.

    Some of your main tasks will include:

  • Taking project leadership and oversight roles on drug programs run in external alliances and arising from external discovery efforts
  • Using external resources to accelerate drug discovery projects, working with project leads to identify bandwidth or capability gaps that hinder the projects and presenting them at internal governance
  • Participating in due diligence for external assets 
  • Working with data science and genomics expertise to actualise the impact of big data and machine learning
  • Driving collaborations within Cardiovascular Research supporting the agenda of the Corporate Vice President
  • Owning and driving key external collaborations independently with global and cross-organisational impact 
  • Qualifications

    You hold an MD or PhD in Cell Biology, Pharmacology, Bioinformatics or related area, or minimum 5 years of equivalent experience in early drug discovery and demonstrated experience in providing technical strategic understanding within pharma or biotech industry.

    To be successful in this position, we expect you to have:

  • Demonstratable experience of working in close collaboration with in vivo and in vitro teams
  • Strong project management experience and in-depth disease understanding and data drug discovery skills to drive projects
  • Commercial awareness in the context of biotech/pharma drug discovery and development
  • Experience in driving innovation through the application of state-of-the-art tools
  • Ability to manage high business complexity with conflicting interests
  • On a personal level, you have high level of personal integrity and confidentiality, negotiation skills and strong interpersonal skills to manage diverse stakeholders. You are able to advise across all levels of the organization and manage priorities independently. You uphold high personal integrity and confidentiality, while also being a team player and collaborator. Additionally, you possess strong process facilitation and change management skills. A resilient and flexible mindset is also crucial to navigate challenges and adapt to changes in a fast-paced environment.

    About the department

    The position is anchored in Cardiorenal Research within Global Drug Discovery, Novo Nordisk A/S. As part of Novo Nordisk’s strategy within chronic metabolic diseases, we are focusing on target identification, target validation, and pre-clinical characterisation of new assets intended to become novel treatment options for patients living with cardiometabolic diseases. In close collaboration with our colleagues, we are working in an organ-centric and disease agnostic manner to develop, characterise, and utilise in vitro tools to elucidate mode-of-action and profiling of novel biology and molecules for early evaluation of drug candidates.

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