(Senior) Director, External Drug Discovery

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.

Working at Novo Nordisk

At Novo Nordisk, we don’t wait for change. We drive it. We’re a dynamic company in an even more dynamic industry, and we know that what got us to where we are today is not necessarily what will make us successful in the future. We embrace the spirit of experimentation, striving for excellence without fixating on perfection. We never shy away from opportunities to develop, we seize them. From research and development, through to manufacturing, marketing and sales – we’re all working to move the needle on patient care.

Contact

For further information please contact, Joanna Holbrook, CVP for Cardio-Renal Therapy at ojhk@novonordisk.com.

Deadline

2 June 2024.

You do not need to attach a cover letter to your application, but please include a few sentences about why you are applying in your resume or CV. To ensure an efficient and fair recruitment process, please refrain from adding a photo in your CV.

We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants.

At Novo Nordisk we recognize that it is no longer good enough to aspire to be the best company in the world. We need to aspire to be the best company for the world and we know that this is only possible with talented employees with diverse perspectives, backgrounds and cultures. We are therefore committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates the diversity of our employees, the patients we serve and communities we operate in. Together, we’re life changing.