Senior Director, Head of Rare Disease Asset Operations

Ipsen

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

Ipsen is a mid-sized global biopharmaceutical company with a focus on transformative medicines in three therapeutic areas: Oncology, Rare Disease and Neuroscience. Supported by nearly 100 years of development experience, with global hubs in the U.S., France and the U.K, we tackle areas of high unmet medical need through research and innovation. Our passionate teams in more than 40 countries are focused on what matters and endeavor every day to bring medicines to patients in 88 countries. We build a workplace that champions human-centric leadership and fosters a culture of collaboration, excellence and impact. At Ipsen, every individual is empowered to be their true selves, grow and thrive alongside the company’s success. Join us on our journey towards sustainable growth, creating real impact on patients and society! For more information, visit us at https://www.ipsen.com/ and follow our latest news on LinkedIn and Instagram. Ipsen’s goal is to launch one significant product or indication per year, every year, which will be facilitated by transforming R&D, Franchise and Industrial into an even higher performing organization (asset centric model) with the ultimate goal of leaving no patient behind. The main mission of the AOL is to implement the asset roadmap by driving the cross functional asset team and to be the right hand to the Asset Lead across the product lifecycle. He/she is responsible for the implementation of the asset strategy, tactics and plans endorsed by the governance bodies to ensure the delivery of commercially viable products. He/she ensures that all steps of the development plan are anticipated, planned, coordinated and followed-up to result in the most efficient process. He/she monitors and tracks expenditure against budgets and support resource management against agreed strategic objectives for the program. He/she is responsible for ensuring coherent and consistent communication between project functions and for ensuring key issues are reported to the executives in due time and to work with senior team members on issue resolution. When required by the asset team structure, he/she will be supported by Global Project Managers supporting cross-functional workstreams.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Science.
10-15+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical / Biotech industry and / with experience and understanding of the drug development process, clinical development and project management
Experience working within 1-2 functional area such as clinical, preclinical, CMC or regulatory affairs is required.
US / EU pharmaceutical regulations experience is a must
Proactive and agile to work in a fast-paced environment. The successful candidate will have sound judgment, problem solving, leadership skills and emotional intelligence to lead cross-functionally and identify solutions.
Candidates should be able to demonstrate ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional team members
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
Strong financial acumen to develop/manage program budgets
Strong experience in facilitating project team meetings, cross-functional communication, decision making and ensuring alignment with internal/external stakeholders.
Experience at working both independently and in a team-oriented environment with minimal supervision
Demonstrated ability to effectively prioritize, multitask and execute tasks in a fast-paced environment is crucial
Important sense of urgency and ability to pace the team’s work to achieve milestone achievement in highly competitive environment
Strong customer and patient focus
Written: Excellent
Verbal: Excellent
Interpersonal: Excellent
+/- 25% Domestic and International may be required
English

Nice To Haves

Certification in Project Management, MBA and /or PhD is a plus.
French is a plus

Responsibilities

Work in partnership with the Asset Lead and Franchise Heads to develop and implement overall asset strategy to deliver sustainable product growth in the 5-10-year timeframe
Drive development of the global program level goals that contribute to the overall objectives for the IPSEN portfolio
Create a climate that fosters personal investment and excellence and nurtures commitment to common goals
Facilitate the process for evaluation of alternative development options to deliver programs
Facilitate win/win solutions for program/team conflicts with big picture in mind. Promote ideas persuasively and build on the ideas of others
Align Integrated Development Plan across functional lines
Drive cross functional asset team to prepare Target Product Profiles and global plans to deliver differentiated products under the scientific, medical and commercial leadership of the Asset Lead.
Partner with functional leads to ‘pressure-test’ assumptions and integrate function planning across development into the overall program plan, (e.g. CMC, Regulatory, Clinical, Biostatistics, Technical Operations, Commercial, Medical Affairs, Safety, etc.).
Define the interdependent deliverables and ensures that quality, risk, cost, time are managed within the overall approved plan to drive delivery of asset roadmap milestones and objectives on time and on budget.
Ensure that the plan is realistic for all R&D functions as well as for Tech Ops, BD, Alliance, and Commercial.
Validate the technical integrity of the project team plan ensuring that the technical data is reviewed and discussed at the project team meeting for appropriate decision making on follow-up actions
Closely and proactively monitors the execution of plans, measures result, communicates deviations/discrepancies to Asset Team, specifically focusing on: o Deliverables on time / at risk Key milestones Budget / Resource Contingencies Resource constraints if required Issues and correct deviation to ensure successful project delivery
Update full-scale project plans, timelines, budgets and milestones regularly in the appropriate tool to ensure data for metrics reporting is accurate
Drive milestone decision point planning and associated deliverables across functions to achieve the overall program objectives
Clearly defines the critical path and generates clear decision criteria for the project
Serve as the central operational point of contact for team members
Ensure decisions and actions are tracked in due time
Perform oversight of all program activities related to the development program including, but not limited to, clinical operations, CMC, regulatory and commercial etc.
Demonstrate an appropriate level of technical understanding of the various functions to ensure effective cross-functional communication
Responsible for ensuring that all the projects functions and disciplines deliver with precise execution, quality, in time and within budgets
Proactively manage changes in project scope, anticipating potential problems (potential resource bottlenecks, risks to critical milestones, inefficient processes and resource variance) and proactively develops and seeks approval for risk mitigation plans.
Accountable for ensuring any agreed changes are implemented as required
Responsible for supporting functional leads in vendor selection and management
Comply with all laws, regulations and policies that govern the conduct of IPSEN activities. Always follow IPSEN policies, procedures and processes (including Global R&D Operation ones, such as governance process)
Actively adhere to a Quality Management System (QMS) that supports GxPs and Regulatory requirements and satisfy all internal quality and external regulatory authority expectations
Ensure project / workstream deliverables are managed to enable completion on time and according to required scope and budget, while applying the best practices and tools of an efficient PMO
Always act following One Ipsen Way of Being
Apply a comprehensive risk management methodology that proactively identifies program risks and opportunities together with developing and delivering appropriate contingencies and/or corrective actions to support the team in development of solutions to project conflicts and issues
Apply a deep understanding of risk management methodology in using risk to communicate effectively with Governance bodies and underpin project strategy and delivery.
Provide asset risk map to the Risk Corporate group on an annual basis
Partner with the Asset Lead and function representatives on the asset team to ensure that budget, resource management and project controls are established.
Manage project budget and resource plan in partnership with the Asset Lead, Finance lead, function heads and function representatives on the team
Accountable and responsible to lead budget sessions at intervals that align with Finance budget/forecast calendar delivering and to translate board decisions to team and project budgets
Ensure actuals are properly recorded and coded to the project
Ensure all supportive materials and data are provided for tax credit requests on due time
Support workstream leader to ensure resource, cost and schedule are up to date to enable long term planning
Perform “lessons learned workshops” to identify cross functional learnings to be applied across the portfolio on an as-needed basis (at minimum at stage / gate)
Develop a mindset around benchmarking versus competitors and use this approach to challenge plans and decisions with the team
Apply competitor benchmarking to pressure test scenarios when interacting with governance bodies
Effectively communicates project expectations to team members, senior leaders and the broader organization. Escalates issues to team members and stakeholders in a timely fashion.
Prepares and manages governance interactions in partnership with the Asset Lead.
Define and implement a communication strategy / plan for the project that supports the most effective team empowerment and progress
Define and report metrics to measure project’s performance, while executing the plan