Director, Program Lead

Company Summary

ProFound™ Therapeutics is a biotechnology company discovering novel proteins across the expanded human proteome to unlock transformative drug targets and first-in-class medicines. The company’s proprietary ProFoundry™ Platform integrates state-of-the-art protein detection, validation, and computational technologies to systematically identify and characterize previously unknown proteins and validate their therapeutic potential. This approach has generated a rapidly expanding portfolio of novel targets and programs advancing toward the clinic, along with strategic collaborations with leading pharmaceutical partners. Together, these efforts support the development of breakthrough treatments across a broad range of disease areas. For more information, please visit www.profoundtx.com.

Position Summary

ProFound Therapeutics is seeking a Director, Program Lead to lead our discovery program in Women’s Health, with an initial focus on preeclampsia and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. The Program Lead is accountable for the Project Team (PT) and for the overall technical direction, execution, and success of the program, while providing direct scientific leadership to the team executing its laboratory work. The program is anchored by ProFound’s Gates Foundation–funded work and sits within the Cardiovascular, Metabolic, and Neuroscience therapeutic area, giving the Program Lead a funded mandate and defined collaboration goals from day one.

The successful candidate brings a strong foundation in Women’s Health, vascular biology, hypertension, or a similar area of biology, as well as the scientific depth to direct and interpret mechanistic work spanning in vitro and in vivo models, and the ability to own program strategy end to end and represent it at the most senior levels of ProFound, Flagship, and partner organizations. The role is approximately 75% program leadership and external-facing work and 25% direct scientific leadership of the researchers executing the program’s laboratory work guiding experimental design, interpreting results, and translating them into program strategy.

Key Responsibilities

Program Leadership

• Build, sustain, and develop a motivated, high-performing PT; leverage internal and external expertise, including advisory and counseling boards; collaborate closely with groups outside the PT.
• Accountable for the PT, for the overall technical, development, and delivery success of the program, and for lean, fast execution of discovery and early development against defined milestones; able to speak to any program-related topic internally and externally.
• Lead the PT to develop and drive program strategy that achieves collaboration goals and progresses novel protein targets through the defined pipeline stages; own and update the strategy and Target Product Profile (TPP), anticipating internal and external drivers.
• Empowered to make program execution decisions; accountable for framing and recommending stage-gate and advancement options to relevant senior decision makers for continuous alignment on program vision and strategy.
• Responsible for the financial steering of long-term program budgets as assigned by senior leadership, including forecasting, prioritization of spend, and accountability for delivery against budget.
• Accountable to ProFound management and to relevant joint oversight committees with partners for all aspects of the PT’s activities.
• Serve as a principal scientific and operational point of contact for the Gates Foundation collaboration, accountable for delivery against agreed goals, milestones, and reporting commitments.

Scientific and Discovery Leadership

• Set the scientific direction for discovery research in preeclampsia and hypertension in pregnancy, and direct the design, execution, and interpretation of mechanistic studies using state-of-the-art models and technologies.
• Provide day-to-day scientific leadership to the scientists and research associates executing the program’s laboratory work — experimental design, troubleshooting, data interpretation, and prioritization of effort.
• Ensure timely creation and delivery of a Preeclampsia AI tool for evaluating and prioritizing novel preeclampsia biomarkers and drug targets.
• Partner with computational biology and proteomics teams to apply AI and machine learning to large-scale datasets and prioritize targets with high translational potential.
• Translate experimental output into program strategy — interrogating data, testing conclusions, and converting findings into decisions on target prioritization, study design, and pipeline direction.
• Lead target validation informed by proteomic and computational insights, partnering with biology and proteomics teams and other in-house experts.
• Design and oversee in vitro and in vivo models of disease to support target biology, biomarker development, and proof-of-concept studies.
• Shape ProFound’s therapeutic strategy in Women’s Health, including assessment of new indications, and lead external academic and industry collaborations.

Qualifications

Required

• M.D, Ph.D., or equivalent in Physiology, Cell Biology, Reproductive Biology, or a related discipline.
• 12+ years of relevant postdoctoral and/or biotech or pharmaceutical industry experience, including a minimum of 4 years leading cross-functional project teams or programs with accountability for strategy, budget, and delivery.
• Demonstrated ownership of a discovery or early development program, including advancement recommendations and defense of strategy to senior leadership or governance committees.
• Experience building, leading, and developing scientific teams, through direct reporting relationships or a matrixed project team, including guiding the technical work of bench scientists.
• Experience owning and steering multi-year program budgets, including forecasting and prioritization of spend.
• Deep understanding of disease mechanisms and translational models for pharmaceutical development.
• Deep technical command of cellular and molecular biology techniques (e.g., CRISPR, ELISA, qPCR, Western blotting, RNA-seq) and assay development, sufficient to direct experimental design, interpret primary data, and challenge conclusions; ability to integrate multi-omic or genetic data into experimental design.
• Strong track record of scientific contributions (publications, patents, presentations), and excellent communication, collaboration, and organizational skills in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.

Preferred

• Experience in early-stage biotech or drug discovery from target identification through candidate selection or IND, and with stage-gate pipeline governance.
• Experience with human tissue samples, iPSC-derived systems, or organoid models.
• Experience representing a program to boards, joint steering committees, or pharmaceutical partners.
• Experience within grant-funded, foundation-funded, or global health research collaborations and their reporting and governance expectations.

Values and Behaviors

We are seeking leaders who demonstrate strategic thinking, extreme teamwork, executional excellence, adaptability, and a commitment to inclusion and diversity. We particularly value candidates who combine intellectual curiosity with a strong bias toward action - who are as comfortable asking a question as they are driving a workstream to close. We encourage candidates with passion, leadership capability, and depth across these functional areas - even if not meeting every requirement - to apply.

ABOUT FLAGSHIP PIONEERING:

Flagship Pioneering invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health, sustainability and beyond. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated more than 100 companies. Many of these companies have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  

Flagship has been recognized twice 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 and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.

At Flagship, we accept impossible missions to enable bigger leaps. Our core values guide us through uncertainty and toward lasting impact.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We recognize that great candidates often bring unique strengths without fulfilling every qualification. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your background and interest in Flagship.