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Head of Preclinical Research & Development (R&D) US

Employer
GSK
Location
Rockville, MD
Salary
Competitive
Closing date
May 10, 2021

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Reporting to the Head of RDC US, the Head of Preclinical R&D US creates, manages, and leads the Preclinical R&D US team. The Preclinical R&D team works in a matrix environment to support the DPU, VDTs, and VCTs within the RDC or across RDCs (for selected programs) to create and develop new vaccine assets that meet important medical needs. The purpose of this job includes:
  • Manage several teams of skilled scientists who are expert in disciplines that underpin vaccine development. These include, but are not limited to, molecular biology, virology, vector biology, protein chemistry, structural biology, preclinical immunology, human immunology, and toxicology.

  • Responsible for recruiting, staffing, and resourcing the matrix research and development teams in the DPU, VDTs, and VCTs. The preclinical team performs discovery, characterization, and preclinical evaluation activities to create new vaccine candidates, down-select candidates, and deliver the most promising assets for technical and clinical development. Down-selection and de-risking of the preclinical vaccine candidates are done through scientifically rigorous approaches and critical-path early development activities with a focus on relevant animal models and technical developability, which generates a robust preclinical packages (proof-of-principle) that support the Commit to Clinical Development stage gate.

  • Lead and engage in cross-functional relationships with other functional departments in the RDC, in R&D, and throughout GSK Vaccines, such as Preclinical R&D in the other RDCs, CRD, One Development and Medical.

  • Lead and engage in interactions with GSK Biopharma to leverage and synergize preclinical R&D activities and technologies to advance vaccine development and broader GSK R&D strategy.

  • Build external collaborations advancing the GSK preclinical assets. Working with the Head of External R&D, this individual is responsible for developing and maintaining collaborations with external scientists who bring cutting edge technology and solutions to problems encountered in vaccine development.

  • Have the demonstrated credibility and expertise to act as an advocate and key opinion leader driving the scientific strategy of US portfolio programs essential to the RDC US and GSK.



KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
  • Provide inspiring leadership and effective stewardship of Preclinical R&D staff in the RDC
  • Support professional development and qualification of staff. Implement training programs to expand the capacity, capability, and consistency of working. Enable collaboration with Preclinical R&D teams of other RDCs to maintain a consistent way of working. Reinforce the wellbeing within the organization.
  • Manage recruitment, development, and review across the team. Lead, give input, guidance and support for development of talent in the RDC and also within R&D. Lead, coach, develop, and retain Preclinical R&D. Set project related objectives and personal development goals and conduct their annual performance evaluation.
  • Ensure discovery, characterization, and preclinical development of new vaccine candidates, allowing the DPU to deliver the most promising assets to the Vaccine Development Teams (VDTs). Ensure robust early development data packages to support the CDEP activities (including clinical read out strategy) for programs and assets in the RDC.
  • Bring Preclinical issues/questions/decisions to appropriate governing and advisory bodies.
  • Ensure timely filing of patents and submission of manuscripts to peer reviewed journals.
  • Take final responsibility for the development and oversight of preclinical data packages that meet the standards for ethics, scientific merit, and regulatory compliance, as well as meet corporate goals for approval of products.
  • Create and maintain a network of collaborations with external scientists who bring cutting edge technology, solutions to vaccine development problems.
  • Ensure appropriate preclinical representation at Toxicology Working Group, Safety Review Team, Regulatory teams, and other relevant transversal teams.
  • Ensure that the team stays on top of relevant disciplines to meet the expectations of the scientific community and regulatory authorities for a top-tier vaccine company.
  • Act as senior preclinical representative for the RDC, Vaccines R&D, and broader GSK internally (member of governing or advisory bodies) and to the various academic research institutes externally, for projects under the scope of the RDC portfolio.
  • Ensure that research activities are being performed according to all applicable internal and external regulations, guidance, policies, recommendations and laws


Why you?

Basic Qualifications:

We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals:
  • Doctoral Degree (PhD or MD)
  • 10 plus years of experience in pre-clinical vaccine research and development.
  • 7 plus years of experience in people management


Preferred Qualifications:

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:
  • Doctoral level with postdoctoral training or equivalent ; recognized leader in the scientific community.
  • Strong track record of managing high performing teams.
  • Proven ability to collaborate and recruit top-tier scientists.
  • Effective communication, influencing, and presentation skills
  • Demonstrated leadership and interpersonal skills
  • Ability to develop talents
  • Ability to understand and simplify complex situations
  • Ability to innovate and lead organization
  • Ability to establish communication networks, within GSK Vaccines, GSK Pharma, and external world
  • Ability to work under pressure and manage conflict of priorities
  • Ability to work in a matrix organization and in a complex and rapidly changing environment


Why GSK?

Our values and expectationsare at the heart of everything we do and form an important part of our culture. These include Patient focus, Transparency, Respect, Integrity along with Courage, Accountability, Development, and Teamwork. As GSK focuses on our values and expectations and a culture of innovation, performance, and trust, the successful candidate will demonstrate the following capabilities:
  • Agile and distributed decision-making - using evidence and applying judgement to balance pace, rigour and risk, governance and control, managing ambiguity and paradox.
  • Managing individual performance.
  • Creating a performance culture and driving results, prioritisation, execution, delivering performance.
  • Setting strategic direction and leading on-going organisational transformation.
  • Building a resilient organisation. Building strong relationships and collaboration in service of common goals, engaging the organisation and building trusted external networks for mutual benefit.
  • Managing P&L and capital allocation.


*This is a job description to aide in the job posting, but does not include all job evaluation details.

*LI-GSK

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