Senior Manager, Scientific Engagement

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at jnj.com

As guided by Our Credo, Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world. We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual. At Johnson & Johnson, we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit.

Job Function:

Strategy & Corporate Development

Job Sub Function:

Strategic Partnerships & Alliances

Job Category:

People Leader

All Job Posting Locations:

South San Francisco, California, United States of America

Job Description:

About Innovative Medicine

Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients, whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Visionaries like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow.

Join us in developing treatments, finding cures, and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way.

Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine

We are searching for the best talent for our Senior Manager, Scientific Engagement position, to be based in South San Francisco, CA.

Purpose:

The Senior Manager, Scientific Engagement will lead regional scientific sourcing and engagement in South San Francisco, performing first‑pass scientific triage and designing targeted outreach programs that generate high‑quality external opportunities for therapeutic‑area, DPDS, and partnering teams. This senior individual contributor translates priorities into scalable regional strategies that improve identification, triage, and progression of high‑potential external opportunities.

Unlike an event- or marketing-led engagement role, this position serves as a scientifically credible front door to the external ecosystem. The Senior Manager independently assesses inbound and proactively sourced opportunities, distinguishes strategically relevant science from lower-priority opportunities, identifies critical data gaps and diligence questions, and directs the strongest opportunities to the appropriate therapeutic-area, DPDS, Search & Evaluation, incubation, or partnering stakeholders. The role also designs and leads high-impact scientific programs and engagements that generate actionable opportunity flow, market intelligence, and strategic relationships.

The Senior Manager operates across multiple therapeutic areas and functions, manages complex and ambiguous work with limited oversight, influences senior internal and external stakeholders without direct authority, and establishes scalable regional practices and metrics. The position is accountable for recommendations, quality of scientific triage, engagement outcomes, budget stewardship, compliance, and continuous improvement of the regional scientific engagement model.

You will be responsible for:

• Owning the regional scientific engagement strategy and annual activation plan aligned to therapeutic-area and DPDS priorities.
• Performing first-pass scientific and strategic triage of companies, platforms, technologies, and academic innovations, and providing concise recommendations.
• Designing and running targeted engagements (forums, roundtables, partnerships, targeted sourcing) that produce actionable opportunity flow.
• Building and maintaining strategic external relationships with startups, academia, incubators, and investors.
• Leading end-to-end delivery of priority engagements, including vendor/contractor oversight.
• Maintaining opportunity, campaign, relationship, and outcome data in Salesforce and producing regular stakeholder reports.
• Managing program budgets, prioritizing resources, and escalating trade-offs.
• Ensuring compliance with legal, privacy, financial, and records-management requirements and influencing cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority.

Qualifications/Requirements

• PhD in a relevant scientific discipline plus a minimum of 8 years of total professional experience (including leadership/people-management); OR Master's degree plus a minimum of 10 years of total professional experience (including leadership/people-management) is required. Relevant experience includes drug discovery/development, scientific evaluation, translational research, venture/technology scouting, partnering, or related roles.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct scientific triage and early technical assessment of external opportunities is required.
• Proven ownership of complex scientific programs from planning through execution is required.

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