Senior Director, Immunology

What if… you could join an organization that creates, resources, and builds life sciences companies that invent breakthrough technologies in order to transform health care and sustainability?

Montai Health is a privately held, early-stage biotechnology company developing a platform for understanding and leveraging complex molecular interactions within organisms to solve global challenges in human health and sustainability. The company leverages a multidisciplinary approach that integrates tools ranging from machine learning and big data to multi-omics and high-throughput screening.

At Montai, we nurture a bold, spirited and leading-edge culture dedicated to strengthening human health:

• We are one team with omnidirectional trust, empowered and accountable
• We are strong as individuals but stronger as a team and we are committed to excellence
• We have a sense of urgency and persistence and we are crazily confident that we can make a difference
• We need to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and be rigorous and we recognize that failure is data
• We care for diversity in people, thought, personality, opinions, background and distinctiveness
• We have a sense of humor to help us manage through our strategic noise

Reporting to the CSO, the Senior Director of Immunology research  will enjoy working in a collaborative, innovative and fast-paced biopharmaceutical environment. The ideal candidate should have  a high degree of problem-solving capabilities as well as excellent communication skills. This individual should possess the ability to organize and prioritize workstreams as well as to lead, mentor and inspire the team.  

Key Responsibilities:

• Work with a world class multidisciplinary team of drug discovery scientists to advance multiple small molecule programs as new clinical candidates for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases
• Develops, leads, and provides scientific leadership to cross-functional project teams through the creation and execution of high- quality integrated discovery and preclinical research plans
• For each program, define key experiments critical for target validation, and in vitroand in vivo pharmacology and efficacy in order to establish a strong case development candidate and advance towards development and IND-enabling studies
• Coaching and mentoring of scientists in the team to work on defining a critical path for each project and efficient delivery of data to enable go/no-go decisions
• Responsible for facilitating strong collaborations internally and externally (CRO, academics, patient organizations) to identify and facilitate biological assays, technologies, and novel and innovative collaboration to enable discovery efforts and program progression
• Interface with senior management across therapeutic area research, research operations, automation, machine learning and drug discovery to ensure model, assay and screening development meets the needs of our discovery pipeline projects
• Preparing, presenting and reviewing scientific presentations for internal/external use
• Work effectively with the leadership team to ensure timely and seamless transition to clinical development for each program
• Contribute effectively to patent, study report, filings and scientific publication writing

Qualifications:

• PhD. in immunology preferred or PhD in biology, pharmacology or a related scientific discipline would be acceptable with prior experience in inflammatory and immunological diseases
• 10+ year’s industry experience in progressive drug discovery-related activities, experience in small start-up is preferred

Required Experience:

• Design and execution of experimental strategies including defining the relevant assays and disease models to validate targets and explore pathway involvement in various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
• Ability to prioritize responsibilities to meet project deadlines
• Experience working in project teams within the biotech/pharmaceutical industry.
• Experience leading and/or working on successful early discovery and preclinical research, IND-enabling activities
• Prior experience in leading and advancing programs from early discovery to clinical development
• Excellent organizational and prioritization skills, ability of adaptively managing priorities amidst fluctuating circumstances
• Strong team player who is solution oriented.
• Attention to detail and the ability to work individually, within a multi-disciplinary team, as well as with external partners and vendors.
• Strong record of leading teams and demonstrated ability to influence at the Leadership Team level
• Demonstrated ability to develop, and retain talent
• Critical thinking with the ability to analyze possibilities and solutions and make pragmatic trade-offs

• Ability to drive to data-based decisions involving internal and external stakeholders so as to deliver on organizational goals
• Ability to communicate effectively at all levels and present complex and/or new ideas with clarity and simplicity

• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including setting clear meeting agendas, clear documentation and communication of scientific results and conclusions for internal and external presentations (scientific meetings, Board and investor decks)

• Excitement about the vision and mission of Montai
• Proven track record of scientific innovation and success in delivering development/clinical candidates. Creative drug developer can contribute to scientific direction of Montai
• Recognized expertise in discipline externally with good publication record, partnerships and collaborations with the external scientific community

Flagship Pioneering has conceived of and created companies such as Moderna Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MRNA), Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT), Omega Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OMGA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Indigo Agriculture. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures. In 2021, Flagship Pioneering was ranked 12th globally on Fortune’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies.

Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.