Senior Director Ventur Sciences

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

The Venture Science (VS) group within Lilly Ventures (LV) is a pan-therapeutic, global organization. Our goal is to provide scientific expertise, identify breakthrough innovation, and deliver groundbreaking technologies, platforms, and assets into Lilly Research Labs (LRL). As an integral group within Catalyze360, the VS/LV team sits at the intersection of Lilly’s industry leading venture capital strategy and the highly innovative global healthcare and life science ecosystems.

We are seeking a VS Senior Director who will be a key member of the wider LV team supporting the identification, scientific evaluation and coordination of external innovation partnering for breakthrough assets, biological targets and technologies that meet critical patient unmet needs, and technical and investment criteria. Opportunities are sourced from our strategic venture fund partners and other key institutions in our prioritized geographies including your network. You will lead and co-lead fund interactions and also work closely with the other geography leads and our management to find, monitor, and progress the best opportunities for investment or collaboration. Beyond our venture portfolio of opportunities, the role will also support our expanded pillars of external innovation partnering models called Catalyze360 that include (a) ExploR&D.(providing Lilly capabilities externally), (b) Lilly Gateway Labs (sourcing companies to enter our physical innovation spaces) and (c) Chorus (running early clinical development studies for external companies). This innovation should enhance / complement Lilly’s internal R&D portfolio with the ability to address critical patient needs.

You will report to the Vice President VS / West Coast Head and will be a critical member of the geographic team defining strategy and tactics in the region. You will also be part of our larger global team working closely with peers in Indianapolis, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, London and Japan on the detailed real time tracking and execution of external innovation opportunities. A strong relationship with Lilly’s Search and Evaluation colleagues responsible for individual therapeutic and functional areas (TA / FAs), other Corp BD colleagues in transactions, ExploR&D, Lilly Gateway Labs and Chorus will be important. Good communication and relationship-building skills will be required in this global matrix environment.

The ideal candidate will be both an excellent scientist and will have demonstrated the ability to advance projects and initiatives. You should possess outstanding EQ, problem-solving, analytical, project management, communication, and leadership skills. You must also be highly organized and able to multitask effectively with concurrent processing and implementation of many active discussions at various stages of evaluation and business discussions.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to: 

Support the identification and evaluation of new opportunities:

• Carry out technical evaluation of new partnership opportunities via rigorous, objective scientific assessment including analysis of patents, scientific literature, and probing discussions with internal Lilly scientists; identification of key issues and appropriate expertise to facilitate resolution.

• Coordination and triage of an extensive number of external project opportunities – to include leadership of - and participation in - prioritization meetings.
• Deal team / due diligence / pre-due diligence participant, often with responsibility for preparation and presentation of governance documents and investment committee recommendations.
• Work closely with the Head of VS and the fund leads to build and maintain a thorough process to capture and progress the external innovation landscape accessed via our VC fund investments and broader West Coast network of investors / accelerators / incubators / TTOs, research institutes & universities, to highlight and track opportunities aligned to Lilly’s areas of interest (also through the use of external databases and resources as well as our internal INOVA database).
• Lead interactions with external organizations; represent Lilly strategies and needs to external organizations (companies, investment groups, and academic institutions) and provide agre