Executive Director, Clinical Science

Opportunity awaits those up to the challenge of developing transformative therapies across a broad range of debilitating diseases.

Summary:

Roles and Responsibilities:

Clinical Science Leadership

• Serve as functional head of Clinical Science, accountable for performance, quality, and talent development across the portfolio.
• Establish and uphold scientific rigor and consistency across clinical programs.
• Lead, mentor, and develop Clinical Scientists and, when appropriate, therapeutic area agonistic junior Medical Directors.
• Define, implement, and continuously improve clinical science standards, best practices, and governance.
• Ensure high-quality data review, clear benefit-risk framing, and actionable recommendations to support development and regulatory decisions.
• Translate portfolio priorities into resourcing strategies, capability development, and measurable objectives.
• Build robust talent pipelines through hiring, development, and succession planning.

Early Clinical Development Leadership

• Enable and support enterprise early development activities in close partnership with Pipeline Strategy, Asset Teams, and therapeutic area leads.
• Ensure early clinical trials are designed to effectively translate biology into decision-ready clinical evidence.
• Integrate Clinical Pharmacology, Biostatistics, Biomarkers, Translational Sciences, Regulatory, and other functions to deliver coherent dose and development strategies.
• Provide oversight and clinical input of Clinical Pharmacology, ensuring strong clinical context for PK/PD, exposure-response, dose justification, and model-informed development in collaboration with subject matter experts.
• Establish fit for purpose early development processes, standards, and governance to enable efficient learning, rapid risk reduction, and high-quality decision making.
• Provide scientific oversight of early phase studies, ensuring alignment with target product profiles and downstream development needs.
• Partner with Research and Pipeline Strategy to ensure seamless transition of assets into early clinical development.
• Ensure early programs generate data that clearly support go/no-go and phase transition decisions.
• Support the establishment of new therapeutic areas by providing appropriate early clinical development leadership and infrastructure.

Organizational and Operating Model Leadership

• Strengthen the Clinical Development operating model to improve speed, rigor, accountability, and cross-functional alignment.
• Improve decision quality, clarity of tradeoffs, and follow-through across early development programs.
• Mentor emerging leaders to build enterprise leadership capability.
• Promote disciplined benefit-risk assessment, feasibility evaluation, and contingency planning.
• Oversee functional resourcing and provide budget input across Clinical Science and early development activities.
• Build strong external relationships with CROs, investigators, and scientific experts.
• Represent Clinical Development in regulatory interactions and business development diligence, as appropriate.
• Lead through a combination of direct authority and strong matrix influence across R&D, Medical Affairs, and enterprise partners.
• Travel domestically and internationally as required (up to approximately 30%).

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

• MD, PhD, or equivalent terminal degree preferred.
• Advanced degrees such as PharmD or MS considered with substantial clinical development leadership experience.

• 15+ years of progressive experience in pharmaceutical or biotechnology clinical development.
• Demonstrated leadership in Clinical Science and/or early clinical development.
• Proven success building and scaling teams and operating models in matrixed environments.
• Experience influencing portfolio decisions and serving in therapeutic area or program leadership roles.
• Strong understanding of regulatory, biostatistical, and translational science principles.

SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES

• Enterprise leadership with strong systems thinking
• Scientific and medical credibility across disciplines
• Executive judgment in complex and uncertain environments
• Effective matrix leadership and governance presence
• Ability to seamlessly balance strategic leadership with hands-on execution

Travel Requirements:

Education:

Pay Information:

Work Arrangement:

Benefits and Perks:

Apellis offers a comprehensive benefits package, including a 401(k) plan with company match, inclusive family building benefits, flexible time off, summer and winter shutdowns, paid family leave, disability and life insurance, and more! Visit https://apellis.com/careers/benefits/ to learn more.

Company Background:

Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a global biopharmaceutical company leading the way in complement science to develop life-changing therapies for some of the most challenging diseases patients face. We ushered in the first new class of complement medicine in 15 years and now have two C3-targeting medicines approved to treat four serious diseases. Breakthroughs for patients include the first-ever therapy for geographic atrophy, a leading cause of blindness, and the first treatment for patients 12 and older with C3G or primary IC-MPGN, two severe, rare kidney diseases. We believe we have only begun to unlock the potential of targeting C3 across many serious diseases.

For more information, please visit http://apellis.comor follow us on LinkedIn andX.

EEO Statement:

Apellis is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state and local fair employment practices laws. Apellis strictly prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy), gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, genetic information, marital status, AIDS/HIV status, smoker/nonsmoker, and occupational pneumoconiosis or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.
For San Francisco postings: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Other Duties:

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.