Director, Program Lead – Women’s Health and Preeclampsia

Flagship Pioneering, Inc.•Boston, MA

4d•$179,000 - $236,500

About The Position

ProFound Therapeutics is seeking a Director, Program Lead to lead its discovery program in Women’s Health, with an initial focus on preeclampsia and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. The Program Lead is accountable for the Project Team (PT) and for the overall technical direction, execution, and success of the program, while providing direct scientific leadership to the team executing its laboratory work. The program is funded by ProFound’s Gates Foundation–funded work and is part of the Cardiovascular, Metabolic, and Neuroscience therapeutic area. This role offers a funded mandate and defined collaboration goals from the outset. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in Women’s Health, vascular biology, hypertension, or a related biological field. They should have the scientific expertise to direct and interpret mechanistic studies in both in vitro and in vivo models, and the capability to manage program strategy from beginning to end, representing it at the highest levels of ProFound, Flagship, and partner organizations. The role is structured with approximately 75% dedicated to program leadership and external-facing activities, and 25% focused on direct scientific leadership of the researchers involved in the program’s laboratory work, including guiding experimental design, interpreting results, and translating them into program strategy.

Requirements

M.D., Ph.D., or equivalent in Physiology, Cell Biology, Reproductive Biology, or a related discipline.
12+ years of relevant postdoctoral and/or biotech or pharmaceutical industry experience, including a minimum of 4 years leading cross-functional project teams or programs with accountability for strategy, budget, and delivery.
Demonstrated ownership of a discovery or early development program, including advancement recommendations and defense of strategy to senior leadership or governance committees.
Experience building, leading, and developing scientific teams, through direct reporting relationships or a matrixed project team, including guiding the technical work of bench scientists.
Experience owning and steering multi-year program budgets, including forecasting and prioritization of spend.
Deep understanding of disease mechanisms and translational models for pharmaceutical development.
Deep technical command of cellular and molecular biology techniques (e.g., CRISPR, ELISA, qPCR, Western blotting, RNA-seq) and assay development, sufficient to direct experimental design, interpret primary data, and challenge conclusions; ability to integrate multi-omic or genetic data into experimental design.
Strong track record of scientific contributions (publications, patents, presentations), and excellent communication, collaboration, and organizational skills in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience in early-stage biotech or drug discovery from target identification through candidate selection or IND, and with stage-gate pipeline governance.
Experience with human tissue samples, iPSC-derived systems, or organoid models.
Experience representing a program to boards, joint steering committees, or pharmaceutical partners.
Experience within grant-funded, foundation-funded, or global health research collaborations and their reporting and governance expectations.

Responsibilities

Build, sustain, and develop a motivated, high-performing Project Team (PT); leverage internal and external expertise, including advisory and counseling boards; collaborate closely with groups outside the PT.
Accountable for the PT, for the overall technical, development, and delivery success of the program, and for lean, fast execution of discovery and early development against defined milestones; able to speak to any program-related topic internally and externally.
Lead the PT to develop and drive program strategy that achieves collaboration goals and progresses novel protein targets through the defined pipeline stages; own and update the strategy and Target Product Profile (TPP), anticipating internal and external drivers.
Empowered to make program execution decisions; accountable for framing and recommending stage-gate and advancement options to relevant senior decision makers for continuous alignment on program vision and strategy.
Responsible for the financial steering of long-term program budgets as assigned by senior leadership, including forecasting, prioritization of spend, and accountability for delivery against budget.
Accountable to ProFound management and to relevant joint oversight committees with partners for all aspects of the PT’s activities.
Serve as a principal scientific and operational point of contact for the Gates Foundation collaboration, accountable for delivery against agreed goals, milestones, and reporting commitments.
Set the scientific direction for discovery research in preeclampsia and hypertension in pregnancy, and direct the design, execution, and interpretation of mechanistic studies using state-of-the-art models and technologies.
Provide day-to-day scientific leadership to the scientists and research associates executing the program’s laboratory work — experimental design, troubleshooting, data interpretation, and prioritization of effort.
Ensure timely creation and delivery of a Preeclampsia AI tool for evaluating and prioritizing novel preeclampsia biomarkers and drug targets.
Partner with computational biology and proteomics teams to apply AI and machine learning to large-scale datasets and prioritize targets with high translational potential.
Translate experimental output into program strategy — interrogating data, testing conclusions, and converting findings into decisions on target prioritization, study design, and pipeline direction.
Lead target validation informed by proteomic and computational insights, partnering with biology and proteomics teams and other in-house experts.
Design and oversee in vitro and in vivo models of disease to support target biology, biomarker development, and proof-of-concept studies.
Shape ProFound’s therapeutic strategy in Women’s Health, including assessment of new indications, and lead external academic and industry collaborations.