The difference you’ll make:
As the CRO & Outsourcing Manager, you will be at the forefront of Aqemia's drug discovery efforts, responsible for driving strategic partnerships and ensuring high-performance collaborations with CROs.
Your key responsibilities will include:
Day-to-day operations with CROs - (60% of the time)
- Oversee our campaigns of screening
- Check assay availabilities in our partnered CROs
- For novel targets: provide scientific support on identifying the proper screening assay and setting-up the work with the identified CRO
- Manage and track compound purchases
- Coordinate assays with CROs
- Check consistency of experimental results
- Ensure reception and communication of results
- Support Drug Discovery Project Leaders in their needs
- Compounds order (punctual vs on demand chemistry)
- CRO benchmarking on specific assays
- Identify and setup needed cell assays with the proper CRO
- CRO prospection and relationships
- Meet with current CROs monthly to address long-term questions
- Challenge KPIs on chemistry and TAT on biological assays
- Prospect potential CROs and benchmark them
- Cost tracking and contracting
- Manage invoicing with CROs
- Keep track of projects CRO costs
- Negotiate contracts and contract renewals
Scientific support in targets exploration and DD projects - (20% of the time)
- Analyze novel targets from a biological perspective: therapeutic area, assays to be set up, and input on differentiation from the competition
- Provide input in drug discovery projects data packages
Supporting other project as (non-exhaustive list):
- Help in R&D funding,
- Provide to tech team inputs for improvement from a biological perspective
- Staying up-to-date in a specific area / take part in conferences for target scouting
Who you are:
- PhD in relevant field (biology, biochemistry, pharmaceutical sciences)
- 2-4 years project management experience in drug discovery-related activities through a CRO, a biotech or a big pharma
- Hands-on experience in biochemistry assays or in vivo assays, with experience on pharmaceutical targets being a plus
- Capable of interpreting biology related experiments and results: Kd and IC50 determination, cell-based assays, ADME assays, PK, PK/PD and efficacy studies (the more the better)
- Outsourcing management experience, negotiation skills are a plus
- Ability to understand and challenge chemistry-related KPIs is a plus
- Ability to work with online data-related tools is a plus
- Team player comfortable working with peers from different backgrounds and able to explain efficiently the stakes behind experimental results
