Senior Manager / Associate Director, Life Science Partnerships

Lila Sciences is seeking a Senior Manager / Associate Director for Life Science Partnerships to drive revenue and scale the partnerships function. This individual contributor role involves owning and growing Lila’s Life Sciences pipeline, leading end-to-end deal cycles with pharma, biotech, and life science organizations, and bringing market insights back to product and science teams. The role requires a blend of scientific literacy, technical depth, business acumen, and relationship-driven enterprise sales to define how leading life science organizations engage with Lila’s scientific superintelligence platform.

Must Have

• Own and grow a significant portion of Lila’s Life Sciences pipeline and revenue
• Run disciplined, end-to-end deal cycles with pharma, biotech, and life science organizations
• Lead repeatable offerings and complex, multi-stakeholder engagements
• Bring structured market, commercial, and financial insight back into Product, Science, and Corporate Development
• Build, manage, and grow a high-quality pipeline, from lead generation and qualification through proposal, negotiation, and close
• Lead complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles across R&D, platform/technology, data/AI, and business leadership
• Maintain accurate forecasts and CRM hygiene
• Drive outreach and closing for repeatable Life Sciences offerings
• Analyze win/loss patterns, use cases, and objections; synthesize market intelligence
• Help define and own deal and offering economics (e.g., pricing logic, unit economics)
• Partner with Product Management and Science to ensure proposed engagements are technically feasible
• Serve as a strong bridge between customers and internal teams; monitor the competitive landscape
• Define and continuously improve core BD processes and playbooks

Good to Have

• Experience at an AI-native biotech, platform biotech, autonomous lab, or data platform selling into pharma or life sciences
• Exposure to partnerships or offerings that combine AI/ML, data, and wet-lab or experimental platforms
• Prior experience in a founding GTM / early-stage BD or sales role
• Hands-on use of AI tools in your day-to-day workflows (prospecting, research, pipeline management, proposal drafting)
• Curiosity about how AI and autonomous science will reshape healthcare and life sciences

Perks & Benefits

• Bonus potential
• Generous early equity

Your Impact at Lila

Lila Sciences is looking for a Senior Manager / Associate Director, Life Science Partnerships, a revenue-focused individual contributor who will help build and scale our Life Sciences Partnerships function. In this role, you will:

• Own and grow a significant portion of Lila’s Life Sciences pipeline and revenue by running disciplined, end-to-end deal cycles with pharma, biotech, and life science organizations
• Lead both repeatable offerings and more complex, multi-stakeholder engagements; turning qualified interest into well-scoped, strategically-aligned partnerships
• Bring structured market, commercial, and financial insight back into Product, Science, and Corporate Development to refine our offerings, pricing, and go-to-market over time

This role blends scientific literacy, technical depth, business acumen, and relationship-driven enterprise sales. You will prospect, qualify, and close partnership engagements; while supporting larger, more complex collaborations. You will be a foundational member of the team that defines how leading life science organizations engage with the world’s first platform for scientific superintelligence.

What You'll Be Building

Own pipeline, revenue, and deal execution

• Build, manage, and grow a high-quality pipeline, from lead generation and qualification through proposal, negotiation, and close, with clear accountability for revenue targets
• Lead complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles across R&D, platform/technology, data/AI, and business leadership, ensuring tight coordination and timely progress
• Maintain accurate forecasts and CRM hygiene, and use these to inform planning, capacity, and leadership decisions

Drive scalable offerings, market intelligence, and deal economics

• Drive outreach and closing for repeatable Life Sciences offerings; applying and refining standard scopes, deliverables, and success metrics with Product and Science
• Analyze win/loss patterns, use cases, and objections; synthesize this market intelligence into concise recommendations for offering design, positioning, and prioritization
• Help define and own deal and offering economics (e.g., pricing logic, unit economics, effort vs. value), flagging commercially or operationally risky structures early

Inform product strategy, GTM, and BD process excellence

• Partner with Product Management and Science to ensure proposed engagements are technically feasible, aligned with capabilities, and executed smoothly by clearly capturing and communicating needs, constraints, and timelines on both sides
• Serve as a strong bridge between customers and internal teams; monitor the competitive landscape, keeping track of trends in AI/ML partnerships, and assessing their impact on Lilly’s strategy.
• Define and continuously improve core BD processes and playbooks (qualification criteria, proposal templates, handoffs to delivery, governance rhythms) to raise the operational bar of the Partnerships function

What You’ll Need to Succeed

• BS, MS, PhD or equivalent experience in biology, bioengineering, chemistry, computational biology, or a related field, with strong fluency in scientific concepts and experimental or computational workflows
• 5+ years in client-facing roles serving biopharma or life science customers, such as business development, enterprise sales, customer success, or strategic account management with demonstrated experience:
• Owning and growing a book of business or revenue target in scientific, technical, or data-driven industries
• Running or supporting multi-stakeholder sales cycles (discovery, proposal, negotiation)
• Strong communication and presentation skills; able to translate complex concepts into clear, actionable value for customers
• Highly organized and execution-oriented; comfortable managing multiple opportunities in parallel and moving work forward with limited oversight
• Collaborative, low-ego working style; able to build trust quickly with Product Managers, scientists, engineers, and operations

Bonus Points For

• Experience at an AI-native biotech, platform biotech, autonomous lab, or data platform selling into pharma or life sciences
• Exposure to partnerships or offerings that combine AI/ML, data, and wet-lab or experimental platforms
• Prior experience in a founding GTM / early-stage BD or sales role (e.g., helping define early processes, playbooks, and collateral)
• Hands-on use of AI tools in your day-to-day workflows (prospecting, research, pipeline management, proposal drafting) and curiosity about how AI and autonomous science will reshape healthcare and life sciences

About Lila

Lila Sciences is the world’s first scientific superintelligence platform and autonomous lab for life, chemistry, and materials science. We are pioneering a new age of boundless discovery by building the capabilities to apply AI to every aspect of the scientific method. We are introducing scientific superintelligence to solve humankind's greatest challenges, enabling scientists to bring forth solutions in human health, climate, and sustainability at a pace and scale never experienced before. Learn more about this mission at www.lila.ai

If this sounds like an environment you’d love to work in, even if you only have some of the experience listed below, we encourage you to apply.

Compensation

We expect the base salary for this role to fall between $140,000 –$197,333 USD per year, along with bonus potential and generous early equity. The final offer will reflect your unique background, expertise, and impact.

We’re All In

Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy

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A Note to Agencies

Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.