Senior Director Neurodegeneration, Translational Sciences

Role Summary

Senior Director Neurodegeneration, Translational Sciences. Lead translational initiatives in neurodegeneration to inform biomarker strategies and support preclinical to clinical transitions, including development and validation of disease biomarkers and PoM/PoC alignment to patient subtypes.

Responsibilities

• Translational Leadership: Provide strategic leadership to develop and execute translational research strategies to support discovery and development of therapeutics, including evaluation of business development opportunities.
• Translational innovation: Evaluate novel techniques and technologies (e.g., spatial transcriptomics) to inform translational initiatives and biomarker development; validate human assays to enhance translation and predictive value.
• Disease Biomarker Strategy Development: Partner with Disease Teams and Development to identify, prioritize, and validate disease biomarkers, mechanistic/surrogate biomarkers, patient stratification, and differential response prediction for clinical studies.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work with Translational, Disease Teams, Genomics, biology groups, biomarker platforms, Medicine Development Teams, data sciences, regulatory affairs, business development, and commercial teams to integrate translational research across the drug development lifecycle.
• External Partnerships: Establish and maintain collaborations with academia, CROs, and other partners; build a network of experts to stay at the forefront of translational science and biomarker advancements; contribute to BD opportunity evaluation.
• Matrix Leadership: Provide mentorship and development for the team; manage resources, budgets, and timelines; represent RIITU at governance reviews and contribute to pipeline/investment decisions.

Qualifications

• Required: Ph.D. in a relevant scientific discipline (e.g., Cell/Molecular Biology, Genetics, Pharmacology, Physical Chemistry or related).
• Required: Extensive understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and translation/biomarker implementation; substantial translational science and biomarker development experience in pharma/biotech; recognized expert with publications.
• Required: Experience in clinical trial settings, authoring/oversight of clinical and regulatory documents; knowledge of regulatory requirements and industry best practices in translational research.
• Required: Proven track record in biomarker strategy implementation and translational insights supporting clinical progression; experience managing external collaborations and evaluating BD opportunities.
• Required: Strong executive and people-management skills, ability to manage multiple projects and maintain high performance; inclusive matrix leadership and ability to foster psychological safety; strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
• Preferred: Awareness of bioinformatic/computational methods for integrated analysis of translational and biomarker data sets.

Skills

• Strategic translational leadership
• Biomarker development and validation
• Cross-functional collaboration and matrix leadership
• External partnership management
• Decision-making to de-risk clinical transitions

Education

• Ph.D. in a relevant scientific discipline

Additional Requirements

• Work Location: United Kingdom or United States; on-site presence with hybrid flexibility.