Executive Director, Business Development

Overview

POSITION SUMMARY: 

BRIDGE Innovation & Business Development, at University of Chan Massachusetts Medical School is recruiting for an Executive Director – Business Development.

 

What do we do? BRIDGE team ideates and executes a comprehensive business strategy to commercialize UMass Chan’s IP portfolio through the development of NewCos, alliances, licensing agreements and partnerships. BRIDGE team is accountable for structuring, negotiating, and implementing a variety of transactions with external entities, including investors, leading as well as new pharma/biotech companies, incubators and other research organizations.

 

Success at BRIDGE & UMMS Chan: BRIDGE @ UMass Chan's reported licensing revenue of approximately $146 million during FY2018 and ranked fourth among all U.S. institutions and third among universities in terms of licensing revenue. BRIDGE and UMMS Chan researchers have also co-founded multiple successful companies – Alnylam, Atalanta Therapeutics, ApicBio, Voyager Therapeutics, GenerationBio, Acworth & Bacainn to name a few.

 

UMMS Chan is a research powerhouse: UMMS Chan is a vibrant research enterprise that spends >$250M per year in research activities and consistently produces noteworthy advances in clinical and basic research. In 2006, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to UMMS Chan professor Craig C. Mello, PhD for discoveries related to RNA interference (RNAi). UMMS Chan researchers have made pivotal advances in HIV, cancer, diabetes, infectious disease, and in understanding the molecular basis of disease. UMMS Chan Programs and centers include the RNA Therapeutics Institute, the Gene Therapy Center, Program in Gene Function and Expression, Systems Biology and Neurotherapeutics.

 

The Role: The Exec. Director – Business Development will be an executive leadership role in the BRIDGE Innovation & Business Development team and will report to the Executive Vice Chancellor (EVC) – Innovation & Business Development. The individual in this position will manage a team of senior professionals focusing on a variety of therapeutic categories.

The individual in this role will lead negotiations and deal-structuring for venture creation, licensing and other commercialization initiatives for the entire research portfolio @ UMMS Chan and will have a direct impact on the success of the licensing, partnerships and NewCo formation through assessment, and execution on externalization strategies with academic/biotech, investor and venture partners. In this leadership position, the candidate must demonstrate influencing skills and organizational savvy to effectively interact with multiple internal research faculty/investigators and must drive similar interactions with external partners to efficiently evaluate and execute on license/collaboration/externalization of novel ideas and assets.

Responsibilities

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

 

Key Expectations:

• Lead a team of direct reports in business development team & set strategic priorities/goals for commercialization of UMMS assets and be accountable for overall revenue of the department
• The candidate's main responsibility is to strategize the development of ‘high potential clusters’ working with New ventures colleagues across entire portfolio, prioritize marketing, partner acquisition to increase licensing revenue of UMass Chan
• This candidate will lead the end-to-end transaction process across a wide variety of therapeutic portfolio assigned to the team and will be the senior point of contact with the external partner for business aspects of any potential deal.
• This position will mentor and guide deal negotiations for the team members as needed, structure and negotiate collaboration and will be accountable for outcome of any partnering and investment interactions during due-diligence and negotiation/contracting process
• Identify opportunities to expand potential partnership avenues (including SRA/MTA etc.) & manage the deal process with other functions in BRIDGE team in order to drive decision making at all levels.
• Ideate novel partnership structures to cultivate external investor and syndicate interest in UMMS Chan assets and platforms
• Ideate and propose innovative venture creation (NewCos/ spin outs) where appropriate and lead development of business case and presentation materials for investors

 

Governance & Teamwork:

• The candidate will be responsible for timely development and presentation of detailed material describing transaction structure and negotiation strategy for internal governance/approval process as established by EVC- Innovation and Business Development.
• Strategically prioritize team focus and bandwidth deployment in consultation with EVC- Innovation & Business Development to maximize the value of UMMS Chan assets and platforms to selected partners and investors
• Works collaboratively with the Head of Transactions and leader of Intellectual Property Management during negotiation of any NBTS or definitive agreement.
• The candidate will collaborate closely with members from the scientific faculty/team members, finance, legal functions to evaluate external opportunities, help New Ventures & Operations team to manage the due diligence process, develop business cases, and ensure close alignment with internal stakeholders across different research groups to secure new partnership opportunities in line with the BRIDGE strategy.

 

Other Duties:

• Supports external visibility and connectivity by participating or presenting in both internal and external forums to ensure that [email protected] Chan is considered partner of choice
• Other projects, initiatives and/or duties as assigned by EVC-Innovation & Business Development from time to time.

Qualifications

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• A minimum of 10 years of previous work experience in business development the field of biopharmaceuticals is required; this work experience can have been acquired through work directly in a biopharmaceutical company (whether large or small), in academic technology transfer at an institution of similar stature as UMMS Chan or through work experience in venture investing, management consulting, or investment banking.
• Undergraduate degree required; preferably scientific, medical or business. Advanced degree preferred (MBA). Combination of scientific and business background is preferred
• Please include a detail sheet along with resume
• Demonstrated experience with all phases of business development and license transactions from the healthcare industry is required (please include deal sheet in application).
• Experience in managing teams in matrix environment required
• High tolerance for ambiguity and ability to influence processes (internally and externally) must be demonstrated.
• Understanding of the drug development process and working knowledge of the essential activities for key functional areas.
• Strong interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills, including specifically, the skills needed to manage difficult conversations and interactions as they arise

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Advanced degree in the scientific field & MBA