Description
ProFound Therapeutics is seeking a Director, Program Lead to lead their discovery program in Women’s Health, with an initial focus on preeclampsia and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.
The Program Lead will be accountable for the Project Team (PT) and for the overall technical direction, execution, and success of the program, while providing direct scientific leadership to the team executing its laboratory work.
Key Responsibilities:
- Build, sustain, and develop a motivated, high-performing PT
- Leverage internal and external expertise, including advisory and counseling boards
- Collaborate closely with groups outside the PT
- Accountable for the PT, for the overall technical, development, and delivery success of the program
- Lead the PT to develop and drive program strategy that achieves collaboration goals and progresses novel protein targets through the defined pipeline stages
- Own and update the strategy and Target Product Profile (TPP), anticipating internal and external drivers
- Empowered to make program execution decisions
- Accountable for framing and recommending stage-gate and advancement options to relevant senior decision makers
- Responsible for the financial steering of long-term program budgets
- Accountable to ProFound management and to relevant joint oversight committees with partners
- Serve as a principal scientific and operational point of contact for the Gates Foundation collaboration
Scientific and Discovery Leadership:
- Set the scientific direction for discovery research in preeclampsia and hypertension in pregnancy
- Direct the design, execution, and interpretation of mechanistic studies using state-of-the-art models and technologies
- Provide day-to-day scientific leadership to the scientists and research associates executing the program’s laboratory work
- Ensure timely creation and delivery of a Preeclampsia AI tool for evaluating and prioritizing novel preeclampsia biomarkers and drug targets
- Partner with computational biology and proteomics teams to apply AI and machine learning to large-scale datasets
- Translate experimental output into program strategy
- Lead target validation informed by proteomic and computational insights
- Design and oversee in vitro and in vivo models of disease to support target biology, biomarker development, and proof-of-concept studies
Qualifications Required:
- M.D, Ph.D., or equivalent in Physiology, Cell Biology, Reproductive Biology, or a related discipline
- 12+ years of relevant postdoctoral and/or biotech or pharmaceutical industry experience
- Demonstrated ownership of a discovery or early development program
- Experience building, leading, and developing scientific teams
- Experience owning and steering multi-year program budgets
- Deep understanding of disease mechanisms and translational models for pharmaceutical development
- Deep technical command of cellular and molecular biology techniques
- Strong track record of scientific contributions
Preferred:
- Experience in early-stage biotech or drug discovery
- Experience with human tissue samples, iPSC-derived systems, or organoid models
- Experience representing a program to boards, joint steering committees, or pharmaceutical partners
Values and Behaviors:
- Strategic thinking
- Extreme teamwork
- Executional excellence
- Adaptability
- Commitment to inclusion and diversity
The salary range for this role is $179,000 - $236,500.