Join us as we transform immunology and deliver medicines that help autoimmune patients get their lives back. argenx is preparing for multi-dimensional expansion to reach more patients through a rich pipeline of differentiated assets, led by VYVGART, our first-in-class neonatal Fc receptor blocker approved for the treatment of gMG, and with the potential to treat patients across dozens of severe autoimmune diseases.
We are building a new kind of biotech company, one that maintains its roots as a science-based start-up and pushes our commitment to innovate across all corners of our business. We strive to inspire and grow our company, our partnerships, our science, and our people, because when we do, we deliver more for patients.
The Director, Drug Development Project Manager (DDPM) oversees the high-level plans and progress of all aforementioned teams working on the asset, end-to-end from pre-clinical into commercial. In addition, they add indication overarching activities and milestones for which they document downstream impact and justification of change to include project budget and resourcing. They partner with the Asset Strategy Lead and the function Leads constituting the Early Development Strategy Teams (EDST) or Asset Strategy Teams (AST). The DDPM compiles and owns the integrated cross-functional project plan, translating the corporate strategy. Like all PMs at PMO, DDPM champion project management techniques and processes, coach team members on their consistent utilization, including mapping and mitigation of project risks, and applying and logging lessons learned.
DDPMs act as primary point of contact when concerning integrated cross-functional project planning and status. They closely collaborate with stakeholders who own, contribute to, and/or manage the project and the impact of decisions and changing circumstances.
Key Accountabilities/Responsibilities:
- Leads and develops the DDPM, as individuals growing confidence, skills, experience that sets them up for personal growth in their preferred direction and in line with corporate and Development strategy. Controls the agreed upon scope and ensures the team stay within the agreed scope.
- Manages the project lifetime plan with stage-driven level of detail, to proactively indicate and mitigate risk and resolve issues.
- Continued management and communication of the project planning of timeline, budget, and resourcing. This includes the flagging of delays, underspending/overspending, and insufficient or inadequate resourcing where they may liaise with governance, Finance, and Function Heads on behalf of the team.
- High performing team’s effectiveness e.g., through proactively addressing stakeholders and partnering with the project leadership to ensure effective project team and governance.
- Partnering with the different teams and function Leads to translate team strategies into fully integrated functions-overarching project plans. They take ownership of the plans and derive and share insights that influence project strategy.
- Encourages and ensures positive team dynamics, and organize consistent storage of (working) documents and easy access for team members and stakeholders as appropriate.
- Promptly communicates substantial acceleration or delay on the project and downstream impact to project leadership and corporate management and proactively drives corrective actions to be put in place as needed.
- At project level, partner with internal and external stakeholders (teams, functions, governance, alliance partners, licensees) set up effective project communications and manage change towards common goals while championing conflict resolution. On behalf of the project team, reach out for updates, guidance, and/or endorsement at governance meetings and ad-hoc meetings.
- Find, develop, and deploy methods and frameworks to inform prompt, quality decision making.
- Facilitate operational excellence in all business processes in support of argenx drug development projects and PMO’s process improvement projects and tool introductions e.g., through sharing best practice, creation and management of templates, trackers, and business process documents.
- Ensures critical review of resources allocated to the integrated project plan.
- Partners with finance to unburden the organization from any budget related questions, perform baseline comparisons and inter-budget exercise variance analysis.
- Co-creates with business process managers the dashboard and is the business liaison to identify the reporting needs from our business partners.
Required Skills, Education and Qualifications:
- Strong leadership skills ensuring that argenx values are embedded in team dynamics.
- Strong communicative skills ensuring inclusiveness.
- Strong collaborative skills ensuring that experience and knowledge around the table is taken into consideration.
- Strong interpersonal skills: ability to mediate the prevention and management of conflict.
- Strong project management skills; broad exposure to the pharma R&D process; advanced planning experience with MS Project. PMP (Project Management Professional) certification is an advantage.
- Ability to deal with continuous change.
- Advanced degree (Master or PhD) in health-related discipline or equal by experience.
- At least 10 years of drug development experience in distinct phases of development, in different disease areas.
- Minimum 8 years of Program Management experience in a Pharmaceutical or Biotech environment, preferably cross-cultural/global.
- Genuine interest and prior experience in people leadership.
- Experience in Regulatory Affairs and/or Clinical Development is preferred.