ARPA-H Program Manager

About Deep Origin

Led by Michael Antonov, the co-founder of Oculus, Deep Origin’s mission is to reinvent the way scientists work and bring life science innovations to life. We’re building the tools to accelerate drug development and extend human healthspan by decades. To get there, we are building an operating system for science, enabling scientists to be more productive and to bring tomorrow's ideas to life quickly and at a reasonable cost.

About the Project

ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health) has recently launched CATALYST, a 4.5-year program to replace IND-enabling animal safety studies with faster, more predictive in silico human physiology models. Deep Origin is leading the PREDICTS Consortium in applying for this Other Transaction, which brings a unique combination of modeling and simulations, ex vivo systems, and high throughput data aggregation to solve CATALYST’s needs. 

About the Job

We are seeking a Program Manager to oversee our firm’s execution of the project and to ensure the successful operation of the PREDICTS Consortium, comprising 10 firms across biotechnology and technology. Working in concert with the Consortium’s team members, you will address challenges related to CATALYST to enable delivery of a comprehensive, in silico simulation to replace animal ADME-Tox studies in drug development. 

This is an opportunity for someone with extensive “ARPA” experience (e.g., DARPA, IARPA) to lead and work with an exceptionally talented and high-performing team on challenging and cutting-edge projects. This position requires the ability to effectively lead and manage complex scientific/research projects. The program manager will have to effectively manage the budget, juggle multiple priorities, organize processes, oversee successful execution from concept to deliverables,, and have the ability to coordinate among both management and technical professionals. The program manager will be viewed as the ultimate leader of both the project and the consortium.

Responsibilities include: 

• The Program Manager will serve as a single point of contact as the Administrative Agent to both government and to the consortium team members, managing all programmatic matters of CATALYST and day-to-day operation of the project. 
• Own project performance and deliverables to ensure technical, programmatic, and financial goals and objectives are met and identify possible program risks, including: 

• Guidance and management of the Consortium Management Committee 
• Development of regular status reports, milestone updates, and performance reviews to ARPA-H. Maintaining program budget, including gathering and reviewing regular budgetary and milestone information from consortium members.
• Engaging with ARPA-H, PREDICTS Consortium Members, and as needed ARPA-H contractors and other CATALYST performing teams on deliverables and execution. 
• As this program is not a traditional prime-subcontractor structure, ARPA-H will have the ability to communicate with any team member, and part of Program Manager responsibility will be coordinating, attending, and disseminating outcomes of these meetings.
• Submitting required monthly technical status and financial reports, as well as assembling, reviewing, and approving larger deliverables (e.g., End-of-Phase reports)
• Maintain project progress Gantt tracker in Jira and provide regular updates on project progress to Deep Origin’s senior leadership and the Consortium Management Committee.
• Working closely with Head of Business Development, CPO, and Product Managers to create a path to commercialization
• Working closely with our COO and Head of Business Development to maintain ARPA-H relationship

Requirements

Minimum skills and knowledge: 

• Bachelor’s Degree with a minimum of 5+ years of relevant experience, including prior experience on ARPA projects (e.g. DARPA, IARPA, ARPA-E).
• Prior interactions with the FDA, and prior experience/familiarity in some combination of: drug development, molecular biology, computational biology, computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, machine learning, and/or mechanistic modeling.
• Prior experience managing multi-organization projects spanning multiple years, and responsibility and experience in both technical and non-technical personnel management.
• Experience in a supervisory capacity in planning, developing, and executing significant research and development efforts.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and presentation skills with both deeply technical-and non-technical personnel. 
• Proven results-oriented problem-solving abilities, and bringing an attitude of win-win to every challenge. 
• Strong experience with project management tools (Jira or MS Project) and presentation graphics and/or spreadsheet tools (Microsoft Office or Google), and familiarity with budget tools.
• Experience in establishing strong working relationships with R&D program managers as well as organization leadership; tracking task order efforts to rapidly identify and resolve potential and new problems; and identifying and resolving administrative and contractual issues related to a support services contract is required.