Sr. Director - Strategic Alliances (SMDD)

Eli Lilly and Company • Us, IN

4d • Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Director, Strategic Alliances position seeks a collaborative, inclusive, energetic leader who will define and lead activities with external synthetic CMC collaborations. This role will require significant CMC knowledge, creativity, resilience, and business acumen. The position will work cross-functionally within PRD and across our external network to ensure appropriate capabilities, adequate capacity, and agility that adapt to an ever-evolving global landscape. This position will provide leadership with strategic external partners to advance Lilly’s Synthetic Molecule Design and Development (SMDD) need for drug substance and drug product development, characterization, and supply of material for toxicology and clinical trials. The Senior Director role will be critical to enable SMDD’s strategic goals related to speed, value, and world class execution on a multifaceted portfolio in a dynamic world landscape. The position will accomplish this through a collaborative approach across external partners to enable novel business constructs, solid operational execution, and robust governance processes. The role will be a member of strategic governance with CDMOs. The relationships with these partners will be instrumental to ensure reliable, high-quality supply of information and material for small molecule, peptide, and oligonucleotide assets.

Requirements

• Minimum B.S. (Chemistry / Engineering / Biosciences).
• Minimum 15 years’ CMC experience in pharma with minimum of 5 years’ experience of enabling novel CMC technologies/supply chain via contract manufacturing organizations.

Nice To Haves

• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and solve problems
• Excellent communication and project management skills, ability to lead and influence others with or without authority
• Curious, high capacity of absorbing information and demonstrated learning agility
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity
• Demonstrated ability in operational excellence
• Candidate must be able to work cross-functionally, cross-culturally, and with individuals at all levels of the organization
• Strong business acumen

Responsibilities

• Implement and maintain strategic partnerships: Lilly’s mission to bring novel therapeutics to patients begins in SMDD. This role will be instrumental to foster collaboration at external partners for the rapid design and development of drug substance and drug product for pre-clinical/clinical phase assets. These relationships are crucial to afford product (supply chain) along with process knowledge needed for global submissions. This role will liaise with Discovery and Manufacturing organizations to enable seamless transition of assets throughout their lifecycle.
• Ensure Alignment: Work closely with cross-functional leaders across Lilly CMC, Quality, Procurement, and Safety to translate PRD/SMDD strategic requirements into actionable results with external collaboration partners to ensure delivery of Lilly’s growing portfolio.
• Drive implementation of novel technology: Integrate with leadership and technical staff at CDMOs to successfully transfer novel SMDD technology for GMP production. Enable collaborative business relationships to achieve speed and flawless execution to transform molecules into medicines.
• Champion Operational Excellence: Monitor capacity, quality, and performance in alignment with business contracts and perform trend analysis. Develop and drive governance of external operations with CDMOs. Manage and facilitate efficient and effective business processes across supply chain, R&D, compliance, and contractual obligations. Identify and champion best practices.
• Relationship Management: Serve as an advocate for partnerships and their objectives. Mitigate business risk, legal uncertainties, and human relationship risks. Work to reduce inefficiencies out of operations and monitor resources devoted to the alliances. Engage in frequent communication to seek 360⁰ feedback from external partners and internal stakeholders on alliance performance/issues. Coach Lilly team members on development of relationship with partners.
• Laboratory Informatics: Partner with Tech@Lilly on lab design and data/knowledge capture while assuring alignment with SMDD strategic goals and compliance requirements. Leverage technical laboratory experience and knowledge to advance SMDD practices into state-of-the-art capabilities. Ensure alignment between CDMOs and SMDD. Oversee activities related to business operations, including cross-functional issue management, audit support, contract adherence, and ensure alignment with alliance goals. Milestone tracking and awareness. Partner with internal Lilly stakeholders to address issues/gaps and ensure alliances are meeting intended goals. Help identify and resolve conflicts. Drive “Voice of the Alliance/Customer” to diagnose relationship health. Bridge cultural gaps between Lilly and partner. Coach Lilly team members on development of relationship with partners and vice versa.

Benefits

• company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance)
• company-sponsored 401(k)
• pension
• vacation benefits
• medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits
• flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts)
• life insurance and death benefits
• certain time off and leave of absence benefits
• well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: Associate degree