Director, Research Partnerships

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas – immunology, oncology, neuroscience, and eye care – and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us atwww.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie onX,Facebook,Instagram,YouTube,LinkedInandTik Tok.

Please note: A cover letter is mandatory with this application in order to be considered.

About DJS-AbbVie Oxford:

DJS-AbbVie is an AbbVie R&D hub based in Oxford, born out of the acquisition by AbbVie, Inc. of the Oxford-based biotech firm DJS Antibodies. As part of AbbVie, we aspire to create new medicines to improve the lives of patients with immunological and neurological diseases, and cancers. To do this, we are building a hub in Oxford that integrates human centric biology, drug design and discovery, and mechanistic clinical testing. Practically speaking, this involves leveraging our on-site capabilities in mAb discovery and biology to discover and develop new pipeline assets, alongside uncovering of new biology and delivering assets to the clinic by working with the international AbbVie R&D organisation, local academic and biotech partners. This hub model has delivered a number of first-in-class drug candidates and clinical assets. As well as a broad network of local collaborations spanning drug discovery technologies, novel disease biology, and novel clinical trial paradigms. The breadth of innovative activities taking place here makes it a unique place to work and a vital part of AbbVie’s aspiration to turn science into cures.

About the role:

The ‘Director, Research Partnerships’ will play an essential role in delivering on the vision above, reporting directly to the site head. Their purpose will be to identify opportunities for strategically-aligned collaborations and drive seamless partnership with the UK biomedical research ecosystem, establishing partnerships led locally by the DJS-AbbVie Oxford hub as well as internationally by functions within the broader AbbVie R&D organization. These will cover basic and translational research as well as mechanistic clinical experimentation. As well as driving external collaborations, they will also aid in the further development of internal strategy.

The role will have 4 key aspects:

• Strong scientific understanding of AbbVie’s R&D priorities, particularly in immunology, and including a good interpersonal network with key stakeholders and decision-makers
• An entrepreneurial approach to external collaboration, proactively seeking to understand capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of the Oxford and broader UK/EU biomedical ecosystem (particularly Oxford, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Cambridge, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Leiden) to identify opportunities for collaboration
• Strong partnering acumen to get ideas from concept through project planning to contract execution: ability to understand what both sides need for a collaboration to be successful; development of granular project plans with clear deliverables; willingness to work closely with legal and partnering teams from AbbVie as well as the collaborative partners to develop partnership models and project-manage projects through contracting.
• Act as a leader within the DJS-AbbVie Oxford site, contributing to internal drug discovery and development strategy by ensuring their learnings from external collaborative projects and internal R&D strategy are reflected in the DJS-AbbVie Oxford site strategy.

Initially there will be a focus on identifying opportunities in immunology, particularly in the AbbVie Disease areas of Rheumatology, Gastroenterology and Dermatology and well as the biological Interest Areas of Immune Tolerance and Tissue Homeostasis. We envisage that initially the role will focus on consolidating relationships and driving the successful execution of projects with our existing collaborative network, while subsequently looking to expand that network to include further capabilities.

Because of the breadth of activities that the DJS-AbbVie Oxford hub integrates, this role will allow exposure to a wide range of biological science, drug discovery and clinical activities. The successful applicant may be drawn from a wide range of industrial or academic backgrounds, including: academic alliance management; biotech venture investment; business development and partnering; or other roles that bring experience of identifying opportunities; project development; and stakeholder management.

Successful applicant's key responsibilities

• Develop and maintain network of potential external collaborators
• Understand AbbVie R&D priorities and build cross-functional interpersonal relationships
• Work up concepts for collaborative projects and build stakeholder support within the broader AbbVie R&D organization
• Work with collaborators and AbbVie R&D colleagues to refine and align project plans to AbbVie strategy
• Work with legal functions to drive project plans through the contracting process
• Work closely with collaborators to oversee and ensure projects are executed on track
• Keeping up-to-date with latest developments by reading literature and attending conferences
• Act as a leader within the DJS-AbbVie Oxford site, bringing learnings from external an internal interactions to guide overall strategy
• DJS-AbbVie Oxford has a culture of operating ‘close to the lab bench’ where discoveries are fundamentally made. This is embodied by all staff, including those who are primarily office-based, and up to the level of the site head. Therefore, occasional work in the DJS laboratories will be encouraged where possible.

Required attributes

• Have a strong understanding of translational sciences as these pertain to drug discovery and/or development
• Experience turning scientific/clinical concepts or proposals into actionable project plans
• Experience establishing or running complex scientific projects with multiple stakeholders, ideally between multiple organisations or legal entities
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• PhD (or equivalent experience), plus 10 years experience working in Immunology research/drug development or related fields
• Experience working with legal teams to capture scientific project plans in collaboration agreements

Desirable characteristics

Experience in drug discovery or early clinical developmen

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