Pharmaceutical Sciences, Technology & Innovation Lead (Sr. Director)

Takeda • Boston, MA

1d • $212,000 - $333,190 • Hybrid

About The Position

This is a senior business, scientific, and technology leadership role in Pharmaceutical Sciences, R&D, accountable for shaping and maintaining an integrated PharmSci technology and innovation strategy and translating it into a prioritized multi-year roadmap aligned to business priorities, lifecycle needs, and enterprise objectives. The role provides leadership across CMC technology innovation, platform strategy, and implementation, ensuring that critical technology capabilities, standard platforms, and innovation opportunities are advanced in a coordinated, scalable, compliant, and value-focused manner across PharmSci. The role serves as the integration point across PharmSci technical functions, enterprise enabling functions (e.g. DD&T), and external partners to connect innovation, technology development, standardization, and deployment into a coherent portfolio that supports pipeline progression, industrialization, lifecycle robustness, and long-term capability build. Working closely with senior stakeholders within and beyond the PharmSci leadership team, the role ensures that technology and innovation strategies are anchored in business outcomes and supported by fit-for-purpose governance, cross-functional collaboration, strong network partnerships, and measurable adoption and value realization.

Requirements

• Master's degree with 19 - 21+ years relevant industry experience or PhD with 13 - 15+ years relevant industry experience.
• Advanced degree in engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, biotechnology, life sciences, or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Demonstrated senior leadership experience in the CMC domain, including leadership of lab-based and/or manufacturing-based teams and credible engagement across technical, operational, and strategic topics.
• Mandatory: strong CMC domain-specific understanding, including end-to-end lifecycle leadership from the Research/CMC interface through development, manufacturing, and quality.
• Mandatory: significant understanding and application of advanced processing concepts and their implications for development, scale-up, manufacturability, robustness, and control strategy.
• Mandatory: demonstrated experience leading technology innovation, platform development, standardization, and/or implementation in complex regulated environments.
• Mandatory: robust understanding and demonstrated application of DDT/IT operations and product delivery frameworks, including enterprise architecture, SDLC, agile/product delivery models, and operating constructs required to deliver and sustain digital products at scale.
• Strong understanding of how digital, data, and enabling capabilities support CMC innovation, platform deployment, and lifecycle execution, including ability to work effectively with enterprise delivery and governance frameworks.
• Proven experience translating complex business, scientific, and operational needs into scalable technology and innovation roadmaps delivered through cross-functional and enterprise organizations.
• Strong portfolio/program leadership capability, including prioritization, governance, dependency management, stakeholder alignment, value realization, and adoption at scale.
• Strong business case framing and decision-making capability across value, risk, feasibility, compliance, readiness, standardization, and lifecycle impact.
• Proven ability to build and manage internal and external partnerships, collaboration networks, and technology ecosystems.
• Demonstrated change leadership, including capability building, implementation support, training programs, and adoption playbooks with measurable uplift.

Responsibilities

• Maintain the integrated PharmSci technology and innovation strategy across key CMC domains (e.g., DS/DP processing, analytical/PAT/APC, device and packaging technologies, platform capabilities, digital-enabled workflows, and knowledge/data-enabling capabilities) and translate it into a prioritized multi-year roadmap aligned to business priorities and lifecycle milestones.
• Drive the PharmSci technology portfolio from early opportunity identification and external/internal scouting through prioritization, piloting, maturation, standardization, implementation, scale-up, and lifecycle adoption, ensuring innovation efforts are connected to practical business value and sustainable deployment.
• Act as the primary PharmSci integrator across technical functions, enterprise enabling teams (e.g. DD&T), and delivery partners to ensure that technology solutions, digital enablers, and data capabilities are aligned to business needs, scalable, compliant, and sustainable.
• Establish and run cross-functional governance for PharmSci technology and innovation initiatives, including intake, prioritization, resource and investment planning, dependency management, decision cadence, and escalation with clear options and trade-offs.
• Provide leadership for implementation aspects of CMC innovation by connecting scientific opportunity with operational readiness, industrialization requirements, manufacturability, platform deployment, and business adoption across the development lifecycle.
• Drive portfolio performance management across technology and innovation initiatives by defining success metrics, tracking value realization, monitoring business outcomes (e.g., speed, robustness, right-first-time, risk reduction, productivity, readiness, quality, sustainability), and integrating reporting into the broader performance management framework.
• Ensure interface alignment across Research/CMC, development, manufacturing, quality/compliance, regulatory, and external partners so that innovation and technology solutions are feasible, scalable, inspection-ready, and supportive of lifecycle robustness.
• Build and maintain a strong internal and external collaboration network across vendors, academia, consortia, peer companies, and enterprise partners, and translate these relationships into actionable partnership models, technology choices, capability build, and strategic opportunities for PharmSci.
• Lead change management, readiness, and adoption at scale in close collaboration with PharmSci stakeholders, including role-based learning pathways, capability uplift, implementation support, and measurable adoption outcomes for standardized technologies and platforms.
• Support PharmSci functional leaders by providing common frameworks, playbooks, and decision tools for technology selection, readiness, scalability, manufacturability, regulatory risk, lifecycle cost, sustainability impact, implementation planning, and value realization.

Benefits

• U.S. based employees may be eligible to participate in medical, dental, vision insurance, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, a tuition reimbursement program, paid volunteer time off, company holidays, and well-being benefits, among others.
• U.S. based employees are also eligible to receive, per calendar year, up to 80 hours of sick time, and new hires are eligible to accrue up to 120 hours of paid vacation.

What This Job Offers

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