Sr. Director - Strategic Alliances; SMDD

Senior Director – Strategic Alliances (SMDD)

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life‑changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first.

We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

In Product Research and Development (PRD), we transform molecules into medicines. Our portfolio of medicines is growing and is one of the most diverse and promising pipelines in the industry. PRD has aggressive goals to transition novel therapies from ideas into medicines that provide fundamental health outcomes using novel technologies, innovative business relationships, and world‑class systems. The Senior Director, Strategic Alliances position seeks a collaborative, inclusive, energetic leader who will define and lead activities with external synthetic CMC collaborations.

This role will require significant CMC knowledge, creativity, resilience, and business acumen. The position will work cross‑functionally within PRD and across our external network to ensure appropriate capabilities, adequate capacity, and agility that adapt to an ever‑evolving global landscape.

This position will provide leadership with strategic external partners to advance Lilly’s Synthetic Molecule Design and Development (SMDD) need for drug substance and drug product development, characterization, and supply of material for toxicology and clinical trials. The Senior Director role will be critical to enable SMDD’s strategic goals related to speed, value, and world‑class execution on a multifaceted portfolio in a dynamic world landscape.

The position will accomplish this through a collaborative approach across external partners to enable novel business constructs, solid operational execution, and robust governance processes. The role will be a member of strategic governance with CDMOs. The relationships with these partners will be instrumental to ensure reliable, high‑quality supply of information and material for small molecule, peptide, and oligonucleotide assets.

• Implement and maintain strategic partnerships:
  Lilly’s mission to bring novel therapeutics to patients begins in SMDD. This role will be instrumental to foster collaboration at external partners for the rapid design and development of drug substance and drug product for pre‑clinical/clinical phase assets. These relationships are crucial to afford product (supply chain) along with process knowledge needed for global submissions. This role will liaise with Discovery and Manufacturing organizations to enable seamless transition of assets throughout their lifecycle.
• Ensure Alignment:
  Work closely with cross‑functional leaders across Lilly CMC, Quality, Procurement, and Safety to translate PRD/SMDD strategic requirements into actionable results with external collaboration partners to ensure delivery of Lilly’s growing portfolio.
• Drive implementation of novel technology:
  Integrate with leadership and technical staff at CDMOs to successfully transfer novel SMDD technology for GMP production. Enable collaborative business relationships to achieve speed and flawless execution to transform molecules into medicines.
• Champion Operational Excellence:
  Monitor capacity, quality, and performance in alignment with business contracts and perform trend analysis. Develop and drive governance of external operations with CDMOs. Manage and facilitate efficient and effective business processes across supply chain, R&D, compliance, and contractual obligations. Identify and champion best practices.
• Relationship Management:
  Serve as an advocate for partnerships and their objectives. Mitigate business risk, legal uncertainties, and human relationship risks. Work to reduce inefficiencies out of operations and monitor resources devoted to the alliances. Engage in frequent communication to seek…