Director of External Research & Development

Join Amgen’s Mission of Serving Patients

At Amgen, if you feel like you’re part of something bigger, it’s because you are. Our shared mission—to serve patients living with serious illnesses—drives all that we do.

Since 1980, we’ve helped pioneer the world of biotech in our fight against the world’s toughest diseases. With our focus on four therapeutic areas –Oncology, Inflammation, General Medicine, and Rare Disease– we reach millions of patients each year. Amgen is advancing a broad and deep pipeline of medicines to treat cancer, heart disease, inflammatory conditions, rare diseases, and obesity and obesity‑related conditions.

As a member of the Amgen team, you’ll help make a lasting impact on the lives of patients as we research, manufacture, and deliver innovative medicines to help people live longer, fuller happier lives.

Our award‑winning culture is collaborative, innovative, and science based. If you have a passion for challenges and the opportunities that lay within them, you’ll thrive as part of the Amgen team. Join us and transform the lives of patients while transforming your career.

Director of External Research & Development

What you will do

Let’s do this. Let’s change the world. In this vital role within External R&D in Business Development, you will lead a team responsible for identifying and evaluating innovative external therapeutics in Rare Disease for potential in‑licensing, M&A, or collaboration opportunities.

The successful candidate will develop and nurture a network of key industry and academic contacts to ensure robust communication of ideas, interests, and information between the external rare disease ecosystem and internal Amgen groups. The role requires proactive efforts to search for and identify external opportunities through networking, conference coverage, company engagement, academic outreach, and systematic reviews of the external landscape.

The candidate will assess and prioritize opportunities based on Amgen’s rare disease strategy, scientific rationale, medical need, competitive differentiation, development feasibility, and strategic fit.

This role requires scientific and strategic breadth across rare disease areas, potentially including immunology, ophthalmology, nephrology, neurology, hematology, metabolic and genetic diseases, and other specialty areas. The candidate should be comfortable evaluating diverse therapeutic modalities, including biologics, small molecules, RNA‑based therapeutics, and gene therapy.

The role includes leading technical evaluations of external opportunities by creating and managing cross‑functional review teams and providing clear recommendations grounded in scientific, clinical, development, and strategic judgment, including rare disease‑specific considerations such as patient identification, endpoints and development feasibility. This person will ensure efficient reviews, support business negotiations and contractual execution for selected projects, and lead strategic discussions with senior management, R&D, Commercial, Regulatory, Medical, and other stakeholders to define priorities for licensure, collaboration, M&A, or out‑licensing.

What we expect of you

We are all different, yet we all use our unique contributions to serve patients. The dynamic professional we seek is a leader with these qualifications.

Basic Qualifications:

Doctorate degree and 4 years of experience in drug development industry and/or biopharma business development

OR

Master’s degree and 7 years of experience in drug development industry and/or biopharma business development

OR

Bachelor’s degree and 9 years of experience in drug development industry and/or biopharma business development

Preferred Qualifications:

• Doctorate in a scientific discipline with broad working knowledge across rare disease biology and drug development. Experience in one or more areas such as immunology, ophthalmology, nephrology, neurology, hematology, metabolic disease, genetic disease, or other rare/specialty diseases is strongly preferred.
• 4+ years of management and/or leadership experience in business and drug development activities, with strong technical R&D experience and business development,…