R&D - Watertown, Massachusetts
Position Summary
Acrivon Therapeutics is seeking an accomplished R&D leader to provide scientific and strategic leadership for
the company's drug discovery and research activities located in Boston, MA and in Lund, Sweden. The VP/SVP will lead
Drug Discovery, Biology, Translational Science, and DMPK/Toxicology and partner with the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Development Officer, and broader clinical team in shaping the precision medicine strategy for Early Clinical Development, to advance programs from target evaluation through IND to clinical Phase 2 proof of concept.
The
company uses rational drug design and co-crystallography for chemical SAR and in particular leverages its proprietary phosphoproteomics
platform, AP3, for biological SAR across all its drug discovery programs.
The candidate is a data-driven,
accomplished, proven scientific leader with a record of peer-reviewed papers in impactful journals. The ideal candidate will have experience with pathway-based drug discovery and OMICS data, in particular with MS-based proteomics and phosphoproteomics analyses and preferably have experience and understanding of pathway mapping. (S)he will
have excellent communication skills
and be a
strong scientific integrator and decision-maker who can synthesize complex datasets. The candidate will identify the critical experiments needed to resolve uncertainty and translate emerging preclinical and clinical data into clear program and portfolio decisions. The candidate will have strong presentation and slide-making skills
with ability to distill complex data into clear, powerful messages depending on the audience, both external investors, pharma partners, and analysts, Advisors, and Board members, as well as for internal teams and stakeholders.
The position reports to the Chief Executive Officer and will be fully on site, five days per week at Acrivon Therapeutics' corporate headquarters in Watertown, MA. As is customary in senior leadership roles, the candidate will also from time to time be expected to make him/herself available for urgent matters as needed outside normal business hours.
Duties and
Responsibilities
- Provide scientific and strategic leadership across Acrivon's drug
discovery portfolio.
- Help drive the data-driven analysis of hit and lead
proprietary phosphoproteomic data utilizing Acrivon's
AP3 platform, to uncover mechanism of action, and critical desirable cellular pathway effects early on in programs for particular scaffolds and series.
- Integrate discovery, biology, pharmacology, translational, DMPK/tox and clinical data in close collaboration with the biomarker team, computational/data sciences team, proteomics team, and clinical team as well as individual stakeholders.
- Drive program prioritization and key decisions from target selection and lead optimization through development candidate nomination, IND-enabling development and clinical translation.
- Partner with functional leaders to define critical experiments, decision criteria, development risks and mitigation strategies.
- Guide translational strategies encompassing mechanism, PK/PD, biomarkers, patient selection, and dose and schedule optimization.
- Partner with Clinical Development to interpret emerging clinical PK, PD, safety and efficacy data and translate findings into development strategies.
- Provide scientific oversight of external collaborators, CROs and consultants.
- In close partnership with Data Science, Biomarker Development and Biology
functions,
co-lead and develop R&D leaders while establishing clear accountability and effective cross-functional decision-making. - Represent R&D in executive leadership and Board discussions.
Qualifications
- Advanced degree in life science field (PhD, MD, MD/PhD or equivalent).
- A minimum of
15 years (VP)
or 20 years (SVP) relevant
biotechnology/pharmaceutical R&D experience with significant leadership responsibility.
- Outstanding oral and written communication skills and swift ability to lead a multi-disciplinary drug discovery and biology team across Watertown, MA and Lund, Sweden locations.
- Data-driven individual with strong analytical skills and ability to rationally uncover mechanism-of-action of compounds based on high resolution proteomic and phosphoproteomic data of compound pathway effects and mechanisms.
- Proven
experience advancing small-molecule programs from discovery through IND-enabling development, with broad understanding of drug discovery, pharmacology, translational science, PK/PD, DMPK and toxicology.
- Strong oncology drug
development experience with some clinical
development experience strongly preferred; additional
experience in immunology and inflammation desirable.
- Advanced expertise
in standard software programs and ideally also in various publicly available OMICS analytics and visualization tools.
- Highly developed expertise in generating visually appealing slides distilling complex data into powerful messages for external stakeholders, including investors, analysts, bankers, as well as for Board and Advisory meetings and internal teams and stakeholders.
- Demonstrated ability to integrate multidisciplinary datasets and make high-quality research decisions even when navigating uncertainty.
- Strong executive-level scientific communication and collaboration skills and ability to interact and collaborate closely with C-level team members.
