Senior Director, In Vivo Therapeutics
Editas Medicine, United States
Job Description
At Editas, we’re driven by a collective purpose, to bring transformative and life changing therapies to people living with serious diseases with the greatest unmet needs. This fuels our drive to excel in scientific innovation, allowing us to harness the power and potential of CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cpf1 (Cas12a) gene editing.
We believe our people are at the core of everything we do, and we’re committed to cultivating a culture where every individual feels valued and included. To do this, we strive to integrate belonging, inclusivity, diversity, and equity into every aspect of our organization.
Together, we are leading the way towards a healthier and more equitable future.
Position Summary
Editas Medicine is seeking a highly motivated and dynamic leader with proven translational research experience to direct the discovery and advancement of in vivo genome editing medicines for the treatment of serious genetic diseases. This individual will serve as a scientific advisor and lead teams of scientists in the design of project strategies and plans based on understanding of intended indications, patient populations, and endpoints, gleaned through cross-functional interactions with clinical, nonclinical, and translational collaborators. The successful candidate must have a proven track record in the discovery and development of drugs targeting diseases of non-CNS/peripheral tissues at least through IND, with more than one modality including biologics, small molecules, nucleic acid-based, or gene therapy products; and possess a solid understanding of FDA/EMA guidelines. This individual will be collaborative, with proven ability to manage and develop individuals and teams to meet goals, with sensitivity to timelines while maintaining high quality performance.
Key Responsibilities:
As the Senior Director, In Vivo Gene Editing Therapeutics, you will be responsible for:
- Leverage drug development experience and subject matter expertise in peripheral indication space to guide target identification evaluations, prioritizations, and the development of project strategies with a robust chain of translatability from research to clinic.
- Serve as a scientific advisor to project teams for operational planning, including timelines and deliverables, and engage and align stakeholders across functions to enable advancement of Editas’ pipeline of in vivo medicines.
- Lead efforts from early discovery to development candidate nomination, and support thereafter to fulfill needs of development program, e.g., regulatory filings, input to biomarker plan.
- Manage and mentor a diverse team of scientists to build their competencies in drug development, and strategic development of project plans.
- Develop cross-functional lines of communication to promote workstreams, and mentor project leads to develop lines of communication for coordinating project work with functional stakeholders and to manage CROs and collaborators as needed.
- Manage CROs, academic collaborators, and KOLs.
- Establish SOPs, write prospective protocols, author study reports and regulatory documents, assist patent filing, and contribute to business development activities.
- Serve as a technical and scientific resource for junior staff.
- Manage diverse team interactions. Be a dedicated people manager to positively influence our culture.
Requirements
Required Qualifications:
The ideal candidate will possess:
- Ph.D. with minimum of 15 years of working experience, including proven track record in the discovery and development of drugs for diseases of peripheral tissues/organs in the pharmaceutical and/or biotechnology industry, substantiated by publications, patent filings, and/or other, from tenure in drug discovery and development as characterized.
- Subject matter expertise in disease(s) of peripheral indication space as demonstrated by publications and/or track record is highly desirable.
- Working experience with lipid nanoparticles for targeted delivery in vivo is highly desirable.
- Familiarity with FDA and EMA guidance for cell and gene therapy and experience with IND-filing.
- A minimum of five years managerial experience that demonstrates effective leadership in a cross-functional setting.
Preferred Qualifications:
Additionally, candidates with the following attributes are preferred:
- Ability to think strategically to develop project plans to enable rapid, data-driven decision-making.
- Ability to critically, synthesize and extract simple principles from complex datasets.
- Ability to communicate effectively across a broad spectrum of audience both internal and external to Editas, in both oral and written form.
- Excellent collaboration skills with proven ability to th