Program Director; Head fund early-stage innovative medical research | Philanthrop

e Search Group has been retained by one of the world’s leading medical research philanthropic foundations to identify a PhD scientist with pharmaceutical / biotech / VC experience in Business Development for their newly-created Program Director leadership position that will partner closely with the foundation’s CSO to proactively identify, select, disburse, and manage a large portfolio of “big bets” (multi-million dollar awards) on Principal Investigators conducting exceptionally innovative drug and diagnostic translational research that can fundamentally change a field of medicine or healthcare delivery.

Founded by an American billionaire, this foundation’s mission is to proactively identify and fund “high-risk/high-return” and “first in field” projects, rather than relying on the typical “call for proposal” process depended upon by more conventional funders in the biomedical research ecosystem. This foundation (and this position) actively “hunts” for breakthrough therapeutics and diagnostics that might be "stuck" in a lab because it is too expensive to manufacture or too risky for traditional VC firms and provides the "catalytic capital" to prove it works in human patients.

The foundation’s awards are “non-dilutive”, meaning that no intellectual property stake is ever requested back from the university or faculty recipients.

The metrics of success are deaths averted, FDA approvals of diagnostics and therapeutics, number of changes in the standards of care/year, and paradigm-changing new mechanistic knowledge for treating human disease.
Foundation’s Areas of Medical Focus:
• Regenerative medicine / stem cell therapies
• Life‑threatening pediatric diseases
• Cancer – focus on undruggable targets and early detection
• Sepsis
• CV/Stroke
4 Highly Attractive Features:
• High‑Profile Impact: How often in your career will you have the opportunity to hunt and fund early‑stage translational medical research with "game changing" potential that might otherwise go unfunded due to the pharma industry and VCs considering the bets too risky?
• Wide Range of Modalities & TAs: Unlike working in BD at a small biotech, or in BD for one therapeutic area at a large pharma, here you’ll exercise your scientific curiosity across a wide range of cutting‑edge modalities in 6 disease areas.
• Best of Both Worlds: Enjoy the most attractive aspects of industry/VC business development and alliance management without industry downsides (i.e., making deals based on financial gain rather than on significant patient unmet need | layoffs | lack of funding | hardball negotiating | getting outbid by deeper pockets)
• Career Stability: The foundation’s endowment is in the multiple billions, ensuring a career long runway. In this era of pharma industry instability and staff cutbacks by companies of all sizes, having the peace of mind to work for an organization whose finances do not depend on external funding and patent expirations is priceless.
Position Scope in a Nutshell:
• Report to the CSO, a highly respected physician‑scientist with excellent communication skills, who is looking for this position to be a true partner.
• Partner with the CSO, the foundation’s multiple Scientific Advisory Board Committees, and agentic AI to scout for mostly unpublished and newly published potential new projects.
• Coordinate rapid external expert peer reviews using "best practices" funding methods developed at DARPA, NIH, and large disease research specific foundations.
• Partner with the CSO to identify, select, and recruit additional new expert peer reviewers to join their various Scientific Advisory Board Committees.
• Represent the foundation at national research meetings.
• In conjunction with the SABs, provide strategic "portfolio progress" advice to the CSO on potential additional funding partners (e.g., NIH, DoD, NSF, CDC, biomedical research‑intensive foundations, and biopharma companies) to leverage…