Executive Director, Translational Lead - Cardiovascular

For candidates seeking to be located at our Stevenage site, this role will temporarily be based at Stevenage. However, the Company plans to relocate its offices to Cambridge, UK. The location of this role will therefore subsequently change to Cambridge, UK in accordance with timelines to be set by the Company. The relocation is currently proposed to take effect by early 2029.

 
At GSK, we have bold ambitions for patients, aiming to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade. Our R&D focuses on discovering and delivering vaccines and medicines, combining our understanding of the immune system with cutting-edge technology to transform people’s lives. GSK fosters a culture ambitious for patients, accountable for impact, and committed to doing the right thing, making sure that we focus our efforts on accelerating significant assets that meet patients’ needs and have the highest probability of success. We’re uniting science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together. 
Find out more: 
Our approach to R&D

Role purpose:

We are seeking an experienced Executive Director to join our R&D Translational Sciences team to lead the translational strategy for our current and future cardiovascular portfolio. The successful candidate will be responsible for innovative disease area translational initiatives to grow and progress the pipeline from target identification to clinical development phases. In particular, they will develop and deliver disease area and programme biomarker strategies to support higher confidence decision making and increased probability of success in the GSK portfolio in cardiovascular. This will include accountability for development of a foundational data strategy and identification and deployment of biomarker programmes to support earlier understanding of mechanism, efficacy and patient selection. 

The successful candidate will be a member of the Translational Sciences Leadership Team, developing our overall translational strategy and delivery across R&D. The role will have global reach (with R&D hubs in UK, Europe, US and China), and the successful candidate will work closely with senior stakeholders and partners across GSK, including with the Early Pipeline Unit, Biology Unit, R&D Technologies, Development Sciences, Asia R&D and Clinical Development teams. The successful candidate will have deep understanding in cardiovascular disease and in application of causal and mechanistic approaches (including genetics, genomics and observational data) to derive novel and meaningful insights. Using their global external network and deep understanding of disease mechanisms and cutting-edge technologies, they will spearhead initiatives to impact decision making in target selection, mechanistic understanding, biomarker, indication and patient selection – driven by human translational data.

Key Responsibilities:

Scientific and Translational Leadership to impact the GSK portfolio:

• Provide strategic leadership in defining and delivering a compelling translational strategy to discover and develop novel differentiated therapeutics in cardiovascular disease through internal and external business development opportunities.

Translational innovation:

• Evaluate and apply novel approaches and technologies to deliver translational insights, biomarker discovery, development and validation - working in partnership with relevant teams across a multi-disciplinary environment.

• Identify and guide validation of human assays (cells, tissues and organs) to enhance human translation and predictive value to support higher confidence decision making in drug discovery and development. 

Disease Biomarker Strategy Development:

• Partner with the Disease Area Acceleration Teams, R&D Technologies and the Development organisation to identify and establish disease biomarkers for decision making throughout pre-clinical and clinical development phases and aligned with the overall research and development goals. This will include the identification, prioritisation and validation of disease relevant biomarkers, mechanistic/surrogate biomarkers, patient stratification, and differentiated response prediction through to their deployment into clinical studies.

Cross-functional Collaboration:

• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless integration of translational research and biomarker strategies across the drug development lifecycle.

External Partnerships:

• Identify, establish and maintain strategic collaborations with academic institutions, contract research organizations (CROs), and other external partners to access cutting-edge technologies, tools, reagents, biosamples, biomarker expertise, and research capabilities.

• Represent GSK externally and foster a network of external experts and key opinion leaders to stay at the forefront of translational science and biomarker advancements across the industry.

• Contribute to and lead evaluation and diligence of business development opportunities.

Matrix Leadership:

• Provide mentorship, guidance, and professional development opportunities to ensure a high-performing and motivated team.

• Manage disease and project level resources, budgets, and timelines to ensure the successful execution of projects and achievement of milestones and Translational Sciences objectives.

• Represent Translational Sciences at portfolio governance reviews providing critical input to pipeline and investment decision making. 

• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous professional learning within the team.  

Basic Qualifications

We are looking for professionals with these skills:

• MD PhD; 

• Completion of a formal postgraduate clinical training, clinical residency or specialty training in a cardiovascular specialty, including cardiology or cardiovascular surgery.

• Extensive experience in cardiovascular disease, translational science and biomarker development within the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry.

• Recognized expert in cardiovascular disease scientific community through publications and contributions to the field. 

• Experience of working in a clinical trial setting, working as part of a clinical study and experience of authoring and oversight of clinical and regulatory documents. 

• Knowledge of regulatory requirements, industry standards, best practices and compliance considerations in Translational Research and biomarker development and validation.

• Excellent and proven leadership skills, with the ability to motivate and focus a team towards achieving common goals.

Preferred Qualifications

In addition to the above, you will stand out if you bring the following:

• Awareness of bioinformatic / computational methods supporting integrated analysis and interpretation of translational and biomarker-related data sets. Experience and understanding of causal methods applied to human data would be an advantage.

• Deep expertise in cardiovascular pathophysiology, vascular biology, cardio-renal-metabolic syndromes, pulmonary vascular disease, fibrosis, inflammation, and age-related organ dysfunction. 

• Proven track record of influencing decision making through delivery of translational science insights in support of drug progression through clinical transition milestones.

• Extensive experience of influencing senior stakeholders internally and externally. 

• Understanding leading/managing complex collaborations and evaluation of business development opportunities, including scientific, clinical and commercial due diligence considerations.

• Ability to adapt to a fast-paced and evolving research environment, with strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.

• Strong executive management skills, with the ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects to meet timelines while maintaining attention to detail and high-performance standards.

 

Skills

Clinical Development, Drug Regulatory Affairs, Evidence Based Decision Making, Good Clinical Practice (GCP), Influencing Without Authority, Learning Agility, People Management, Project Management, Scientific Presentations, Strategic Thinking

 

 

• If you are based in Cambridge, MA; Waltham, MA; Rockville, MD; or San Francisco, CA, the annual base salary for new hires in this position ranges $284,625 to $474,375. • If you are based in another US location, the annual base salary range is $258,750 to $431,250. The US salary ranges take into account a number of factors including work location within the US market, the candidate’s skills, experience, education level and the market rate for the role. In addition, this position offers an annual bonus and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program which is dependent on the level of the role. Available benefits include health care and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, paid holidays, vacation, and paid caregiver/parental and medical leave. If salary ranges are not displayed in the job posting for a specific country, the relevant compensation will be discussed during the recruitment process.

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

 

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale.

 

People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

 

GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law.

 

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

 

Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us at UKRecruitment.Adjustments@gsk.com where you can also request a call.

 

Please note should your enquiry not relate to adjustments, we will not be able to support you through these channels. However, we have created a  Recruitment FAQ guide. Click the link where you will find answers to multiple questions we receive

 

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