Manager, Alliance Management PICI

Position: Manager, Alliance Management PICI at Center for Technology Licensing at Weill Cornell Medicine (New York City) - Cornell University

Overview
The Manager, Alliance Management PICI, located at Weill Cornell Medicine, will join the Center for Technology Licensing’s business development and licensing team in New York City to work closely with faculty, students, and staff participating in the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy @ Weill Cornell Medicine (PICI@WCM) alliance.The Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) is one of Cornell University's technology transfer offices and is responsible for protecting and commercializing Cornell technologies from Cornell's Weill Cornell Medicine and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) campuses. CTL at WCM is an integral part of the newly launched WCM Enterprise Innovation, a fully integrated organization whose mission is to accelerate the best biomedical innovation to market and translate groundbreaking research into revolutionary care through collaborations and alliances. WCM Enterprise Innovation provides end-to-end support to plant, cultivate, protect, and partner innovative technologies developed by faculty and trainees at WCM and WCM-Q.

For more information about the Center of Technology Licensing, please visit: www.ctl.cornell.edu. For more information about Weill Cornell Medicine Enterprise Innovation and CTL at WCM, please visit: https://innovation.weill.cornell.edu/.

The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy’s mission is to accelerate the development of breakthrough immune therapies to turn all cancers into curable diseases. PICI supports selected renowned institutions and outstanding investigators from additional institutions who have made seminal contributions to the field of immuno-oncology. Well over 400 people are currently PICI-affiliated, including program and administrative staff at PICI and at affiliated research institutions. PICI takes on high-risk, high-reward research projects to advance immunotherapy and help patients.

The Position
The Manager, Alliance Management has primary responsibility for managing complex intellectual property and technology transfer tasks for the PICI@WCM alliance, including being a key liaison between Enterprise Innovation, PICI@WCM’s members and their research teams, other academic institutions involved in the PICI consortium, and PICI. Other duties include ensuring compliance with all intellectual property aspects of the alliance agreement and negotiating permitted third-party agreements to support the PICI@WCM researchers’ laboratories. This is a fixed-term position based on PICI funding. 

Well-qualified candidates for this opportunity will be experienced professionals, able to manage and solve problems in challenging situations with support from senior team members and to escalate matters as necessary to the Senior Managing Director with full transparency.

Key Responsibilities

As the primary liaison managing all intellectual property matters related to the PICI@WCM consortium, the successful candidate will:

• Provide education, guidance, and advice to all faculty and trainees considering participation or actively participating in PICI@WCM funded programs on the terms and obligations of PICI participation, including oversight of all onboarding activities
• Review all future external party funding/collaboration, material transfer, and foundation grant agreements for active PICI@WCM participants
• Participate in internal PICI@WCM research and clinical development meetings with member researchers and project members to help identify new intellectual property being developed, keep abreast of arising research, and fulfill contractual obligations to PICI
• Track and fulfill all reporting and disclosure obligations to PICI and document related action items and approvals
• Liaise regularly with other internal WCM teams, including OSRA, General Counsel, and Research Compliance, to ensure compliance with PICI terms and conditions
• Develop standard operating procedures for onboarding, tracking, and managing the PICI@WCM relationship across all internal WCM teams to enable “real-time monitoring” of the PICI@WCM relationship
• Deeply integrate with the Enterprise Innovation BD&L team and communicate on all matters pertaining to IP strategy and commercialization of PICI-related intellectual property to seamlessly manage and execute agreed upon strategies and action items
• Lead engagement with PICI around matters pertaining to intellectual property and commercialization, including preparing agendas and meeting minutes, coordinating and scheduling steering committee and ad-hoc meetings, and documenting actions and approvals

Qualifications
When evaluating your candidacy, we will look for evidence of the following:

• Master’s or other graduate degree in life sciences, molecular biology, biochemistry, protein chemistry, cell biology or a healthcare field.
• 3-5 years of experience successfully managing early-stage research alliances, especially large and complex endeavors.
• Proven ability to interact with a wide range of people in a professional and ethical manner, including faculty, students, business development professionals, and lawyers with an emphasis on conflict identification and resolution and navigating challenging conversations with transparency and a solution-oriented mindset.
• Excellent communication skills-- listening, presenting, and writing – with proven sensitivity and ability to manage confidential information.
• Excellent organizational and project management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to understand intellectual property transactions, including collaboration agreements, funding agreements, material transfer agreements, and to engage in creative negotiation.
• Ability to work in a highly matrixed and complex organization with multiple stakeholders, align interests between stakeholders, and influence across company lines.
• Ability to cultivate and develop inclusive and equitable working relationships with students, faculty, staff, and community members.
• Experience in and/or demonstrated commitment to supporting diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and wellbeing.

 Additionally, we would like to see evidence of:

• Forward-thinking perspective and a record of strategic team collaborations.
• Deep understanding of complex intellectual property transactions and ability to deftly identify and resolve contractual conflicts. 
• Proven ability to align stakeholders. 
• Functional understanding of intellectual property and business development strategies for discovery-stage healthcare innovations, particularly in the oncology/immuno-oncology field.

Application Instructions
Apply on the Cornell Careers site at https://cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CornellCareerPage/job/Manager--Alliance-Management-PICI--NYC-_WDR-00051357-1. Include a cover letter and resume explaining how your experience and qualifications match the position requirements. Your letter is an important component of your application, and it should highlight experience and skills that demonstrate your ability to manage complex research alliances. (Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.)