Associate Director/Director Sample Strategy

The Role

Reporting to VP of Biology, the Associate Director/Director of Sample Strategy will lead external sample identification and access activities with academic, industrial, and non-profit organisations to enable timely acquisition of relevant human samples for both platform and biomarker activities.

The Associate Director/Director of Sample Strategy will also oversee and manage contracts for all sample sets and
coordinate the practical and contractual steps needed to secure access to sample sets, working with internal and external legal stakeholders as needed. They will work closely across departments and with program teams to understand the program needs to help identify and define appropriate sample sets.

This work will support the sustainable development of Alchemab’s pipeline across a range of disease areas, including immunology and neuroscience. This is an opportunity to help shape and scale Alchemab’s external sample access capability in support of multiple programmes and disease areas.

Responsibilities

• Lead activities to identify and secure new patient cohorts to drive expansion of the platform and support translational activities (e.g. biomarkers).


• Build and maintain productive relationships with KOLs and external stakeholders including biobanks, academic investigators, clinicians and other relevant partners.


• Act as a central point of coordination across internal scientific, operational and legal stakeholders to progress sample access activities efficiently.


• Coordinate with the scientific teams to identify leading global PIs and biobanks from whom to source samples, define cohort characteristics, and ensure their alignment with Alchemab's approach.


• Drive the practical steps required to obtain samples, including coordination of MTAs and related documentation with support from scientific and legal colleagues.


• Understand and be able to communicate the Alchemab Resiliome platform.


• Represent Alchemab externally at meetings and conferences to build networks and identify potential collaboration or sample access opportunities.


• Work with internal stakeholders to ensure sample compatibility with in-house processes.

Essential 

• Experience managing external scientific collaborations and relationships, sample access partnerships, or related cross-organisational activities.


• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively a wide range of internal and external stakeholders and drive activity forward proactively.


• Experience working at the interface of drug discovery, translational research, clinical research, or human biospecimen/sample access.


• Practical experience supporting or coordinating contracting activity, including MTAs or similar agreements, in partnership with legal or business stakeholders.


• Commercially aware and operationally minded, with sound judgement, and a consistent solution-focused approach to problem-solving.


• Able to understand and communicate scientific requirements clearly to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.


• Collaborative, adaptable and comfortable working in a cross-functional and evolving environment.
  
  NOTE: This job description is not intended to be all inclusive.  Employees may perform other related duties as negotiated to meet the ongoing needs of the organisation.
  
  Note to recruitment agencies: we are not looking for assistance at this stage so please contact the HR department only at [email protected] if you think you can help in the future.