Senior Manager​/Associate Director, Life Science Partnerships

Position: Senior Manager / Associate Director, Life Science Partnerships

Senior Manager / Associate Director, Life Science Partnerships

Lila Sciences is looking for a Senior Manager / Associate Director, Life Science Partnerships
, a revenue‑focused individual contributor who will help build and scale our Life Sciences Partnerships function.

Responsibilities

• Own and grow a significant portion of Lila’s Life Sciences pipeline and revenue by running disciplined, end-to-end deal cycles with pharma, biotech, and life science organizations.
• Lead both repeatable offerings and more complex, multi‑stakeholder engagements; turning qualified interest into well‑scoped, strategically‑aligned partnerships.
• Bring structured market, commercial, and financial insight back into Product, Science, and Corporate Development to refine our offerings, pricing, and go‑to‑market over time.

What You’ll Be Building Own pipeline, revenue, and deal execution

• Build, manage, and grow a high‑quality pipeline, from lead generation and qualification through proposal, negotiation, and close, with clear accountability for revenue targets.
• Lead complex, multi‑stakeholder sales cycles across R&D, platform/technology, data/AI, and business leadership, ensuring tight coordination and timely progress.
• Maintain accurate forecasts and CRM hygiene, and use these to inform planning, capacity, and leadership decisions.

Drive scalable offerings, market intelligence, and deal economics

• Drive outreach and closing for repeatable Life Sciences offerings; applying and refining standard scopes, deliverables, and success metrics with Product and Science.
• Analyze win/loss patterns, use cases, and objections; synthesize this market intelligence into concise recommendations for offering design, positioning, and prioritization.
• Help define and own deal and offering economics (e.g., pricing logic, unit economics, effort vs. value), flagging commercially or operationally risky structures early.

Inform product strategy, GTM, and BD process excellence

• Partner with Product Management and Science to ensure proposed engagements are technically feasible, aligned with capabilities, and executed smoothly by clearly capturing and communicating needs, constraints, and timelines on both sides.
• Serve as a strong bridge between customers and internal teams; monitor the competitive landscape, keeping track of trends in AI/ML partnerships, and assessing their impact on Lilly’s strategy.
• Define and continuously improve core BD processes and playbooks (qualification criteria, proposal templates, handoffs to delivery, governance rhythms) to raise the operational bar of the Partnerships function.

What You’ll Need To Succeed

• BS, MS, PhD or equivalent experience in biology, bioengineering, chemistry, computational biology, or a related field, with strong fluency in scientific concepts and experimental or computational workflows.
• 5+ years in client‑facing roles serving biopharma or life science customers, such as business development, enterprise sales, customer success, or strategic account management with demonstrated experience:
• Owning and growing a book of business or revenue target in scientific, technical, or data‑driven industries.
• Running or supporting multi‑stakeholder sales cycles (discovery, proposal, negotiation).
• Strong communication and presentation skills; able to translate complex concepts into clear, actionable value for customers.
• Highly organized and execution‑oriented; comfortable managing multiple opportunities in parallel and moving work forward with limited oversight.
• Collaborative, low‑ego working style; able to build trust quickly with Product Managers, scientists, engineers, and operations.

Bonus Points For

• Experience at an AI‑native biotech, platform biotech, autonomous lab, or data platform selling into pharma or life sciences.
• Exposure to partnerships or offerings that combine AI/ML, data, and wet‑lab or experimental platforms.
• Prior experience in a founding GTM/early‑stage BD or sales role (e.g., helping define early processes, playbooks, and collateral).
• Hands‑on use of AI tools in your day‑to‑day workflows (prospecting, research, pipeline management, proposal drafting) and curiosity about how AI and autonomous science will reshape…