External Research & Collaborations Lead at UCB Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina

Job Description:

JOB DESCRIPTION

Make your mark for patients.

We're here because we want to build the future and transform patients' lives for the better.

At UCB, our people are our experiences and achievements, our passion and drive. That's why we're looking for talented individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences - not just the best and brightest, but those who care about making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients. We promote an environment of diversity, openness, and respect where people can make valuable contributions.

An exciting journey lies ahead. Will you join us in pushing the boundaries of what's possible?

To strengthen our Medical Affairs team, we are looking for a talented individual to fill the position of External Research and Collaborations Lead in our Patient Safety & Medical Management group.

This position can be based either at one of our main R&D sites in Raleigh, NC or Cambridge, MA, or in Atlanta, GA, Slough (UK), or at our Headquarters in Brussels (Belgium).

This role will be responsible for ensuring that the framework and processes to review global external research processes are aligned to industry best practice and UCB strategies (e.g. evidence generation needs, corporate strategy, etc.) and would generate value for UCB, HCPs, caregivers, researchers and ultimately for patients. This role leads the end-to-end processes for assigned external research opportunities with healthcare institutions, healthcare organizations, patient organizations and other organizations to enable the advancement of medical and scientific knowledge. This role is critical to ensure research activities adhere to compliance and regulatory requirements and that the related research improves the quality of patient care.

You like to work in an environment where you can:

• Drive external research review and approval activities with relevant organizations to ensure proposed research opportunities are reviewed and approved. External research opportunities include service agreements, investigator-initiated studies (IIS) and collaborations.


• Ensure alignment to UCB Medical and/or Integrated Evidence Generation Strategy(ies) as well as regulatory and compliance requirements and maintains stakeholder mapping.


• Lead internal and external meetings, including the review committee meetings, collaboration or contract negotiations with external stakeholders, including identification of key ad hoc members as needed.


• Perform quality review of proposed budgets and the fair market value assessments conducted to ensure appropriate compliance with also specific budget elements.

You will contribute by:

• Handling relevant contracting and negotiations, including drafting initial contracts and ongoing negotiations for collaborations involving clinical and real-world evidence studies with health care organizations, health care institutions, and patient organizations. This includes advanced contracting elements such as data privacy and ownership.


• Collaborating with medical, PVU, legal, compliance and other parts of the organization to understand and help drive research needs.


• Overseeing the disbursement of drug supply to the researcher(s) where relevant, including coordination of product supply requests with relevant functions and maintains records on lot/batch/expiry information of UCB products released to study sites.


• Managing the relevant research opportunities to monitor progress against established milestones, identify and escalate issues, ensure evidence of milestone achievement is obtained prior to related payments made.


• Overseeing stakeholder training of the relevant processes.


• Driving process improvement initiatives to established processes to reduce complexity, increase overall compliance and to mobilize and integrate science.


• Managing the proposed research requests based upon strong existing knowledge of and expertise in research needs, evidence generation requirements and the ability to identify solutions for complex submissions.


• Overseeing the service provider activities that contribute to the external research and collaborations processes to ensure services are delivered appropriately and meet all established operational metrics.

Interested? For this position you'll need the following education, experience and skills:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum of 2+ years experience in research and/or contracting within the Pharma/Biotech industry.


• Minimum 1-year experience in a cross-functional lead role within R&D or Medical Affairs.


• Minimum of 1-year experience in a global regulatory environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 1-year minimum experience in project management preferred.


• Collaborate and align internally with key stakeholders on key strategies.


• Flexible and able to work independently in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment on multiple projects efficiently.


• Strategic thinker with the ability to solve complex problems and leverage existing knowledge and building on industry trends


• Strong analytical skillsets and financial acumen while also being able to step back and see the big picture


• Ability to interpret business needs and identify solutions (including potential new solutions or ways of working to improve current processes)


• Ability to prioritize with strong attention to detail.

About us.

UCB is a global biopharmaceutical company, focusing on neurology and immunology. We are around 7,600 people in all four corners of the globe, inspired by patients and driven by science.

At UCB, everything we do start with a simple question: "How will this create value for people living with severe disease?". We are on a journey to become the patient-preferred biopharma leader by delivering medicines and solutions that improve lives. We want to ensure the creation of patient value, now and into the future, while contributing to a society where a population of 8 billion people and more should be able to live a good life within limited resources of one planet.

Curious to know more? Please visit our website www.ucb.com.

UCB and its subsidiaries encourage diversity and inclusion in the workplace; we are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race/color/religion/sex/national origin/veteran/disability/age/sexual orientation/gender identity.