Director, Clinical Development AI Partnerships

AbbVie•San Francisco, CA

1d•$182,000 - $346,000

About The Position

Reporting to the Head of Clinical Development AI Partnerships, the Director, Clinical Development AI Partnerships will play a key role in advancing AbbVie’s external innovation agenda for artificial intelligence applied to clinical development. This role will help identify, assess, and progress partnership opportunities from the global AI and life sciences innovation ecosystem, with focus on AI-enabled capabilities that can improve clinical trial design, efficiency, quality, execution, evidence generation, and participant engagement. This leader will be responsible for independently leading substantive workstreams across sourcing, evaluation, diligence, pilot design, benchmark planning, partner engagement, and internal governance recommendations. This person works in close collaboration with Clinical Development leaders, AI Strategy & Partnerships, Search & Evaluation, Business Development & Acquisitions, Business Technology Solutions, Transactions, Legal, Procurement, Privacy, Compliance, and R&D stakeholders. The primary scope is Clinical Development, with opportunities spanning therapeutic areas and transaction types such as pilots, research collaborations, licenses, option structures, and other partnership models. The successful candidate will bring enough clinical development context to understand the problems AbbVie is trying to solve, enough AI and technology fluency to assess external capabilities credibly, and enough strategy and deal-process discipline to help the organization make practical, evidence-based decisions. This is a builder role in a new and high-priority area: the person should be comfortable operating with ambiguity, developing trusted internal and external relationships, and converting emerging opportunities into rigorous, well-governed partnership paths. This Director role will be a hands-on partner to the Development AI cross-functional team as well as to the broader AbbVie AI Partnerships team. This person will be leading AI Strategy and Operations for the ClinDev organization and serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership in strategy, functions, and business technology. This role is pivotal in driving our organization towards becoming a leader in the application of AI in pharma, ensuring that AI initiatives align with our overarching business objectives, delivering tangible business value and accelerating our promise to patients. He or she will help translate AbbVie’s Clinical Development AI priorities into a focused external innovation pipeline. The core areas of emphasis include clinical trial acceleration, clinical trial innovation, and related AI-enabled capabilities that can improve the speed, quality, and execution of drug development.

Requirements

10+ years of relevant experience in clinical development, clinical innovation, clinical operations, clinical data science, AI strategy, business development, search and evaluation, management consulting, venture, corporate strategy, or related life sciences technology roles. Candidates with more traditional strategy, S&E, BD&A, or consulting backgrounds should have clear exposure to clinical development or AI-enabled life sciences work.
Bachelor’s degree in life sciences, medicine, pharmacy, engineering, computer science, data science, business, or a related discipline is required.
Demonstrated ability to understand clinical development workflows and pain points, including trial design, study start-up, enrollment, clinical operations, evidence needs, or adjacent drug development processes.
Working knowledge of AI/ML, generative AI, agentic AI, analytics, clinical technology, digital health, or data-enabled platforms, with the judgment to evaluate credibility, feasibility, implementation requirements, and potential business impact.
Experience contributing to external opportunity assessments, technical or business diligence, pilots, collaborations, partnerships, licensing discussions, or other strategic initiatives involving cross-functional decision-making.
Strong written and verbal communication skills. Able to synthesize complex clinical, technical, operational, and business information into concise recommendations for senior stakeholders.
Demonstrated ability to thrive in a 0-to-1 environment. Capable of quickly building an internal network, developing trust with cross-functional partners, and collaborating effectively with external organizations.
Highly organized and execution-oriented, with strong project management, meeting facilitation, stakeholder management, and follow-through. Able to work independently while staying tightly connected to broader team priorities.
Strong interpersonal skills and judgment, including communication adaptability, negotiation support, issue spotting, conflict management, and the ability to operate with discretion when handling confidential partner and strategy information.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree such as MD, PharmD, PhD, MBA, master’s degree in a quantitative discipline, or equivalent experience is preferred.
Experience in pharmaceutical or biotechnology drug development, particularly in clinical development, clinical operations, clinical innovation, R&D strategy, or business development.
Experience in immunology, oncology, neuroscience, eye care, obesity, or another AbbVie-relevant therapeutic area is a plus but not required.
Experience at or advising AI-native startups, technology companies, product-focused organizations, venture-backed companies, or top-tier management consulting firms serving life sciences or technology clients.
Experience designing or interpreting pilots, benchmarks, technical evaluations, or value assessments for AI-enabled products or platforms.
Familiarity with data, privacy, compliance, regulatory, procurement, information security, and change-management considerations involved in deploying external technology in a regulated clinical environment.

Responsibilities

Closely monitor the evolving landscape of AI and pharmaceutical innovation as it relates to clinical development. Proactively identify and evaluate potential partnering opportunities from AI startups, technology companies, frontier model labs, clinical technology platforms, digital health companies, academic groups, and life sciences investors.
Lead or co-lead the structured assessment of external opportunities with Clinical Development, R&D, BTS, S&E, BD&A, legal, privacy, compliance, and functional subject matter experts. This includes managing partner interactions, organizing diligence workstreams, synthesizing scientific and technical input, and preparing clear recommendations for senior leaders and governance forums.
Design and coordinate pilots, benchmarks, proof-of-concept studies, and technical evaluations of AI models and platforms applied to clinical development. Ensure evaluations are scoped to answer decision-relevant questions, with clear success criteria, data needs, operational assumptions, risks, and next-step recommendations.
Track active assessments, partner interactions, diligence materials, pilot status, decision points, and open issues. Communicate progress and risks to key stakeholders in a timely and concise way, including through written updates, management presentations, governance materials, and working team discussions.
Contribute to the development of appropriate partnership structures, non-binding term sheets, statements of work, technical and operational inputs, risk mitigation strategies, and negotiation considerations in collaboration with BD&A, Transactions Legal, Procurement, BTS, and functional teams.
Build and maintain relationships with external partners and ecosystem participants to improve awareness of AbbVie’s Clinical Development AI priorities and to source high-quality opportunities aligned with business needs.
Help align Clinical Development leaders, functional SMEs, BTS, AI Strategy, and enterprise stakeholders on opportunity fit, value potential, implementation needs, and decision criteria. Facilitate meetings and working sessions that move the organization toward informed decisions.
Develop reusable approaches for Clinical Development AI external innovation, including diligence templates, pilot design principles, stakeholder maps, decision criteria, ROI and success metric frameworks, and practical guidance on buy-build-partner tradeoffs.