Company Summary:
FL86, Inc. is a privately held, early-stage company developing a novel genomics platform and therapeutics for diseases with a large unmet need.

FL86 was founded by Flagship Pioneering, an innovation enterprise that conceives, creates, resources, and grows first-in-category life sciences companies. Flagship Pioneering has created over 100 groundbreaking companies over the past twenty years, all of which are pioneering novel and proprietary biological, industrial, and engineering approaches to solve major needs in human health and sustainability. These companies include Moderna (MRNA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MCRB), Sana Biotechnology (SANA), Axcella Health (AXLA), Indigo Agriculture, Generate Biomedicines, and Tessera Therapeutics.

Position Summary:

We are seeking a creative, visionary Head of Drug Discovery and Development to help build the company and transform patient lives through the creation and leadership of a world class drug discovery team. This key hire will be responsible for developing and advancing our programs, from screening and hit-ID through the delivery of IND-enabled clinical candidates. These efforts will be performed in collaboration with other leaders on the scientific team, with shared and independent responsibilities. The role offers a unique opportunity to help drive the strategy of an early stage, big concept biotech with direct responsibility over multiple drug discovery projects. The candidate must be an entrepreneurial, highly motivated and purpose driven leader who is able to flexibly and efficiently lead multi-disciplinary teams at various stages of discovery across a broad range of therapeutic areas. The successful candidate will have a track record of accomplishments in drug discovery as well as demonstrated high impact research in academia or industry. S(he) must exhibit excellent leadership, project management, and strong collaboration and communication skills. S(he) should be ready to champion new ideas in a very dynamic and innovative environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive screening and optimization strategy for FL86's drug discovery programs to enable delivery of clinical development candidates following identification of validated targets.
• Advance drug discovery campaigns, manage external vendors (CRO) and integrate cycles of drug development using external and internal resources with a sense of urgency, to move early exploratory programs to IND-ready.
• Oversee execution of programs while leading broad cross-functional teams of scientists.
• Build a diverse drug discovery team to complement and supervise external CRO scientists on the design and prosecution of declared programs, primarily from Hit to Lead and Lead to IND.
• Develop and manage external relationships with academic and commercial partners.
• Identify/create novel complementary platforms to accelerate or improve drug discovery at any stage. Create platform plans and budget, either internally or through partnership.
• Set drug discovery team goals and budgets
• Prioritize resourcing within drug discovery portfolio
• Monitor, evaluate and report project progress to leadership team.

Key Requirements:

• A proven scientific leader with a PhD in human genetics/statistical genetics/genomics or similar discipline with 10+ years of industrial experience with a focus on biologics, antibody, and/or small molecule drug discovery.
• Demonstrated expertise and a track record of success in advancing biologics, antibody, and/or small molecule discovery programs from target validation through lead optimization and into clinical development.
• Experience with in-vivo animal model screening design and execution across a variety of therapeutic areas
• Extensive experience in CRO management
• A track record of communicating scientific concepts and strategies effectively, including a publication record in top-tier, peer reviewed journals.
• Excellent leadership capabilities with at least five years practice guiding and motivating successful teams, as well as building and managing productive research collaborations.
• Very strong communication and partnering skills.
• Demonstrated track record of personnel development.