Senior Director, Head of Health Data Science

Company Summary

Each day, the lives of more than 2 billion people across the globe are impacted by chronic diseases. Moreover, the economic burden on society of treating chronic disease is spinning out of control. Today, this dire situation appears unlikely to change as >95% of global healthcare costs are spent on treating rather than preventing chronic diseases. FL84, Inc. is a privately held early-stage company that is developing and applying advanced biological and computational platforms to discover breakthroughs in detection of and intervention against the etiologies that drive progression from health to disease. Our goal is to leverage FL84’s proprietary platforms to disrupt the current approach of treating chronic disease too late. We endeavor to provide true health care rather than sick care to individuals that are at risk of progressing to disease.

Flagship Pioneering is a biotechnology company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.

Position Summary

We are seeking a Head of Health Data Science with strong experience leading clinical/genomic data analyses, biomarker development, patient subtyping, and clinical study design and execution. Our health data science team develops innovative, proprietary machine-learning methods to collate, organize and analyze large public and internal proprietary data to unlock preemptive intervention and detection. A major focus of the group is looking at health in a more continuous manner both from a real-world data perspective as well as at the cellular, molecular, and genetic levels. The ideal candidate will have a track record of success leading teams to invent and deploy sophisticated computational tools in high-volume, high-speed contexts, particularly as it pertains to analyzing electronic health records, biomarkers, genomics, and other clinically relevant datasets. Additionally, they will have experience deploying these capabilities to support clinical translation (e.g., prospective human studies) and establishment of partnerships with key stakeholders including pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and providers. The successful candidate will aspire to bring safe and effective medicines to patients. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Grow and manage a team of 5-7 high-caliber data scientists, scientists, data security/software engineers, and clinical project managers.
• Outreach to key stakeholders (pharma, biotech, providers, and insurers) to represent company capabilities/aspirations and establish partnerships
• Generation of direct to patient engagement platforms
• Develop and apply clinical informatics, population health, and machine learning methods (including deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing) to generate insights and hypotheses from real-world electronic health record, claims, and various ‘omics data.
• Ideate on how to identify optimal clinically relevant inflection points for preemptive engagement and align these points with insights from time-series biological data.
• Identify novel clinical data sources (imaging, narrative notes, etc.) and develop methods for integrating insights into models.
• Cultivate a data-centric company philosophy by helping to maintain best practices for code development, data management, and infrastructure.
• Communicate insights and conclusions to the scientific team and executive management.
• Monitor and evaluate new and emerging technologies and models and identify opportunities for collaboration within Flagship Pioneering companies, academia, and third parties.

Minimum Qualifications:

• PhD in Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, Genomics, Machine Learning, Statistics, Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics, or similar technical fields
• 12+ years in the biotech industry including 4+ years in people management

• Experience managing successful collaborations with consultants, pharmaceutical partners, CROs, clinical centers, and other external organizations
• Established network of contacts in key academic institutions, clinical centers, and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies

• Experience in developing & deploying machine learning platforms
• Experience with cloud environments including AWS
• Ability to work in and adapt to a fast-paced environment

• Ability to synthesize and present to senior executives, including Board, a complex set of facts (i.e. scientific, clinical, financial, and market information) to facilitate the decision-making process

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in managing clinical operational aspects of human studies and/or clinical trials, required
• Experience with HITRUST data security credentialling
• Experience working with reference clinical databases and datasets (e.g., MIMIC, UK Biobank, TCGA, PCORnet) is a strong plus
• Knowledge of GCP, ICH guidelines and regulatory requirements for clinical trial management 

At Flagship, we recognize there is no perfect candidate. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your unique background.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.