Director, Tech Scouting & Business Development

West Pharmaceutical Services • Uwchlan Township, PA

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

West aims to foster innovative technologies that improve patient health and enhance drug delivery. By combining early-stage funding with West’s 100 years of expertise in integrated containment and delivery systems, wearable devices, and digital technology, we can help turn today’s ideas into the products of tomorrow. Our approach/intent is to create mutually beneficial partnerships where West’s expertise can provide added value and accelerate the development and delivery of our partners’ products to the market. We achieve this through strategic investments and providing our partners access to West’s extensive scientific, global manufacturing, and commercial capabilities. In this role you will be expected to bring a substantial depth of subject matter expertise, knowledge of current developments in both research and industry in new technologies pertinent to West’s business. They are set to work closely both internally - with R&D colleagues as well as Commercial and Corporate Development teams - and externally - with startups, incubator and accelerator organizations - to bring through the correct technologies for the West Ventures team to target.

Requirements

• Masters in biology, chemistry, biomedical, chemical engineering or equivalent scientific or engineering discipline.
• 10+ years of experience, can include time spent either in industry or graduate school

Nice To Haves

• PhD in biology, chemistry, biomedical, chemical engineering or equivalent scientific or engineering discipline.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and proven experience in developing strategy, whether that be working in an academic or industry setting or any other in between (e.g. incubator, tech transfer office, etc.).
• Existing established and academic and/or industry North American network of collaborators.
• Knowledge of IT tools (e.g. DevOps, PowerBI, etc.) that can be used to track and report out on targets.
• Able to be aware of all relevant SOPs as per Company policy as they are related to the position covered by this Job Description
• Demonstrated ability to plan and lead complex projects and deliver milestones, can either be shown in relevant industry projects or via strong collaborative postgraduate research or a combination of both.
• Strong interpersonal skills to generate, maintain and grow research relationships and gain commitment from all internal and external stakeholders across research projects.
• Willingness to learn and to independently explore new technologies, companies and research, understand nascent technologies and be able to generate due diligence reports with minimal guidance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and ability to articulately disseminate due diligence activities to a variety of different audiences, from expert through to non-technical.

Responsibilities

• Lead all tech scouting due diligence activities for West R&D, enabling the company to discover, understand and explore new technologies that may lead to future inorganic investment.
• Responsible for the process of identifying, contacting, socializing, examining and analyzing target technologies and companies with the expectation to prepare findings into correct format for multi-functional stakeholder group to determine next steps.
• Collaborate and gain commitment with stakeholders internally within West (Commercial, Corporate Development) as well as foster external relationships with outside organizations (startups, incubator and accelerator) as needed to achieve project objectives.
• Work across West R&D’s numerous subject matter experts (SMEs) to understand technologies and determine trends and establish an SME network to support deep dives on selected targets.
• Translate highly technical results into easily understood recommendations that will influence senior stakeholders. Provide clear communication, proactively communicate plans and progress while escalating risks, or needs to remove roadblocks that may stall an investment.
• Travel to select targeted research or industry conferences to learn of and scout new technologies.
• Performs other duties as assigned based on business needs.
• Must maintain the ability to work well with others in a variety of situations.
• Must be able to multi-task, work under time constraints, problem solve, and prioritize.

Benefits

• Performance-based bonuses
• service recognition
• employee appreciation initiatives
• opportunities for international exposure and cross-functional collaboration
• opportunities for lifelong learning, growth and development
• benefit programs
• Supported by benefit programs, we empower the physical, mental, emotional and financial health of our team members and their families.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director