Vice President, Translational Science

Summary

Join our team as the Vice President, Translational Science at Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and lead the development of category-creating products through cutting-edge translational medicine environments.

Requirements

• PhD or MD/PhD degree in Biology, Pharmacology, Molecular or Cell biology or related life sciences field
• 15+ years’ experience and a minimum of 10+ years in the pharmaceutical or industry setting
• In-depth understanding and recognized scientific leader with expertise in scientific drug development for assets progressing through pre-clinical and IND-enabling studies and/or Phase I/II trials
• Superior knowledge and solid understanding of emerging research, mechanisms of action and disease models in anterior and posterior segment eye care diseases, preclinically and clinically
• Knowledge of the clinical landscape in ophthalmology indications with good understanding of novel agents and impact to this landscape
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including writing, reviewing, and editing scientific documents
• Superior interpersonal skills, diplomacy, and positive-influencing abilities
• Exceptional communication, influencing and partnering skills to drive decision-making within a multi-disciplinary, matrix teams
• Ability to demonstrate effective leadership behaviors to ensure effective outcomes, including business agility as well as a curious, open-minded, and solution focused mindset
• Effective project management skills
• Strong presentation skills; must be able to provide succinct, strategic, and actionable insights to senior executives
• Proactive self-starter who can lead work independently, with the ability to see the next step and anticipate issues
• Scientifically independent
• Enterprise and entrepreneurial mindset

Responsibilities

• Subject Matter Expert in Pharmacology, Pathophysiology and drug target biology for both anterior and posterior segment diseases
• Establish and maintain strong external partnerships with key opinion leaders, academic institutions and other external partners and be seen as a scientific thought leader in the field of ophthalmology
• Partner with key internal experts across the company including Clinical Development, Innovation Lab and Business Development (BD) to drive translational strategy from preclinical development through candidate selection and contribute to translational strategies in early clinical development through early Proof of Concept
• Establish stage-appropriate project translational strategy for a differentiated asset to address unmet patient need with key “Go/No Go” decision points
• Design and execute non-clinical experiments to support MOA-related translational questions as well as overall understanding of the disease treatment approaches
• Translational biology/pharmacology: Build and develop deep internal expertise in disease areas within ophthalmology, which are prioritized by the company. Identify possible mechanisms, disease models, preclinical POC approaches
• Generate clear, testable translational hypothesis to address unmet needs (mechanism of action, pharmacodynamics, patient selection)
• Identify most relevant models, liaise with the best CRO and interact with academic experts to evaluate potential assets
• Translational sciences strategy: In collaboration with clinical development, define translational strategy on projects with the objective to guide clinical development: indication identification, patient stratification strategy, combination potential, optimization of dose selection, overall biomarker strategy, etc
• In partnership with clinical development, build the differentiation strategy for the therapeutic as well as defining the clinical and mechanism of action hypothesis and disease indication selection for early clinical development
• Contribute to hypothesis-driven study design, execution, and data analysis, including identification of most relevant preclinical and ex vivo models
• Identify key scientific questions in the projects and builds translation sciences plan according to their priority level
• Partner with BD and bring scientific expertise to evaluate and triage external assets and opportunities, identify main risk and mitigation plan and build additional evidence to enable Go/No Go decisions
• Partner with Innovation Lab team to prioritize various hypothesis, identify possible assets, generate evidence to enable advancement into clinical development
• Build open relationships with peers and external partners to ensure best decision making

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Dental and vision insurance benefits
• Paid time off, including vacation, holidays, and personal days