Associate Director - External Innovation S&E Diabetes & Obesity

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.

At Lilly, we have a history of addressing the needs of individuals living with Diabetes by providing breakthrough therapies that result in meaningful improvements in patients’ lives. We continue to build on this history through research and development efforts that aim at next generation insulins and incretins, novel non‑insulin injectable and oral antidiabetic therapies, as well as break‑through therapies for obesity and key diabetic complications, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetic kidney disease and MASH.

Our goal is to offer patients a broad set of solutions that address the needs to individuals living with Metabolic disease. We have one of the largest pipelines in Cardiometabolic Health in the industry and are committed to continuing to build our leadership in it.

As Associate Director, External Innovation Diabetes & Obesity, this role will help develop and implement Eli Lilly’s External Innovation (EI) and Search & Evaluation strategy and priorities to secure pipeline impact across Diabetes & Obesity. The Search and Evaluation scope will include Diabetes & Obesity. Working closely with partners in the Cardiometabolic Research (CMR), this role will support all relevant processes related to the identification and evaluation of new opportunities, preparation of in‑depth documents clearly delineating the opportunity from a scientific and business perspective and partner interactions as projects progress from initial sanctioning through deal closure.

• Identify and map new innovative opportunities with bold understanding of disease biology.
• Rigorously assess programs from biotech, small and large pharma companies for potential in‑licensing/partnering opportunities that have been assigned for review by leadership or identified proactively.
• Manage all stages of partner interactions and evaluations, including initial contact, securing internal interest, meeting execution, coordinating internal debriefs, support CMR Search & Evaluation leadership as needed.
• Ensure prompt evaluation by functional experts (Biology, Chemistry, CMC, ADME, TOX, PK, legal etc.) for opportunity evaluation and pre‑diligence and provide partners with essential feedback/guidance.
• Identify gaps and key issues and appropriate expertise to enable resolution.
• Collaborate with internal scientific teams to identify, design, and implement the scientific experiments necessary to validate external opportunities.
• Support consolidation of scientific feedback leading to internal recommendations and provision of partner responses.
• Maintain awareness of external competitive landscapes for key target areas and assets by actively monitoring all relevant external preclinical- and clinical‑stage assets within therapeutic areas.
• Engage in scientific conferences as directed by CMR Search & Evaluation leadership to scout for new assets and technologies in line with R&D priorities.
• Provide regular updates at the EI deals review sessions.

• PhD in Life Sciences related field, with track record in pre‑clinical research, deep understanding of R&D processes and new modalities in the Diabetes & Obesity area.
• Minimum of 1-5 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
• Strong scientific pedigree as evidenced by publications and presentations.
• Minimum of 1-2 years of experience in external research collaborations and S&E.

• Proven ability to work independently as well as in highly integrated cross functional teams.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to represent Lilly in a highly professional…