Senior Director Translational Sciences

About Acadia Pharmaceuticals

Acadia is advancing breakthroughs in neuroscience to elevate life. Since our founding, we have been working at the forefront of healthcare to bring vital solutions to people who need them most. We developed and commercialized the first and only FDA-approved drug to treat hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson’s disease psychosis, and the first and only approved drug in the United States and Canada for the treatment of Rett syndrome. Our clinical-stage development efforts are focused on Prader-Willi syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease psychosis, and multiple other programs targeting neuro-psychiatric and neuro-rare diseases. For more information, visit Acadia.com and follow us on LinkedIn and X.

 

Position Summary

The Senior Director, Translational Biology will lead the strategy and execution of disease and drug mechanism of action (MoA) studies to accelerate the development of novel therapeutics from discovery through late-stage clinical programs. This role is critical to bridging early research with clinical application, and requires deep expertise in translational sciences, including biomarker strategy and development, along with a strong grasp of the full drug development lifecycle.

The ideal candidate is a scientific thought leader who can synthesize complex biological data into actionable insights, drive decision-making across cross-functional teams, and deliver high-impact contributions to pipeline advancement. With a collaborative and solution-oriented mindset, the Senior Director will serve as a key partner across discovery, clinical, regulatory, and data science functions, helping to shape and deliver Acadia’s translational strategy across therapeutic areas.

Primary Responsibilities

• Develop translational biology strategies to interrogate disease and drug MoA, implement and drive execution for candidate targets and therapeutics.
• Partner with colleagues across the drug development paradigm to develop and test hypotheses designed to advance target and candidate molecule evaluation through various stages of development.
• Design biomarker strategies for both preclinical evaluation and clinical development, with an understanding of clinical context-of-use and requisite assay development requirements.
• Synthesize, analyze and integrate complex biological data, providing clear and actionable insights to drive drug development decisions.
• Identify and manage CROs and build strong collaborative relationships with Acadia partners to maximize the application of complementary areas of expertise.
• Present programs and data for asset team, governance and senior / executive management review.
• Contribute to document generation for preclinical studies & clinical protocols, clinical study reports, statistical analysis plans, research partnerships, regulatory materials (IB, IND, NDA, etc.) and publications.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Education/Experience/Skills

PhD in a life science or related field. Targeting 12 years of progressively responsible experience in drug development within the pharmaceutical or biotech industry. An equivalent combination of relevant education and experience may be considered.

Key Skills:

• A track record of working cross-functionally, fostering a collaborative and high-performing team environment.
• Hands-on experience in drug discovery and preclinical programs and clinical-stage drug development (Phase 1-3).
• Tangible clinical biomarker strategy & development expertise.
• Comfortable working with multifactorial datasets to identify novel observations.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, including experience presenting complex data to program teams, senior / executive management.
• Hands-on experience with regulatory filings (IND, BLA, NDA).
• Experience in rare disease drug development.
• Ability to make decisions in the context of incomplete or ambiguous data, to align with Acadia timelines and objectives.
• Computational literacy with data analysis platforms / experience working closely with computational biology.
• Experience across therapeutic platforms including small molecules, ASO, mRNA is a plus.
• Experience in neurology is a plus.
• Experience in the integration of bioinformatics and experimental biology to enhance data analysis and decision-making is a plus.
• Must be able to travel on occasion.

Physical Requirements

This role involves regular st