Senior Director, Commercial Insights & BD Forecasting

About the role

This role is not a forecast-maintenance role. We are seeking a Senior Director who can build conviction in unfamiliar therapeutic areas, producing a commercially defensible point of view where little internal precedent exists. Reporting to the VP of Corporate Development and BD Strategy, this individual will lead end-to-end commercial assessments for licensing, acquisition, and partnership opportunities across new or adjacent markets.

Responsibilities

• Lead commercial assessments from early landscape scoping through full deal-stage forecasting, with a clear and defensible POV at each stage
• Rapidly develop substantive expertise in unfamiliar therapeutic areas — synthesizing epidemiology, treatment algorithms, competitive dynamics, payer landscapes, and emerging clinical data
• Proactively size white space opportunities before formal deal processes begin; track signals across pipelines, regulatory trends, and payer policy to anticipate where markets are heading
• Design and lead primary research programs (qualitative and quantitative) with physicians, payers, patients, and channel partners — especially where secondary data is thin
• Commission and critically evaluate third-party research; translate external deliverables into actionable commercial insight
• Build Lilly's institutional knowledge base in new markets through documented findings, assumptions, and forecast rationale that persist beyond individual deals
• Forecasting Model Development: Build flexible, reusable forecasting models with modular architecture, shared assumptions, and clear documentation; deploy approaches suited to data-scarce environments
• Go-to-Market & Channel Strategy: Evaluate innovative commercial approaches — outcomes-based contracting, risk-sharing structures, novel launch sequencing — and assess their viability in new market entries; analyze channel architecture trade-offs (specialty pharmacy, buy-and-bill, direct-to-patient, GPO/IDN) and their impact on revenue, access, and deal valuation
• BD Partnership & Executive Influence: Serve as the commercial analytics partner to BD leadership from initial screening through due diligence, term sheet development, and integration planning; present forecasts to senior executives with the confidence to defend assumptions, acknowledge uncertainty honestly, and make clear recommendations — not just ranges; engage directly with external counterparties and advisors during diligence, representing Lilly's commercial perspective with authority

Requirements

• Bachelor's or advanced degree in a scientific field
• 10+ years in pharmaceutical or biotech commercial strategy, BD analytics, market research, or strategic forecasting

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree
• Meaningful exposure beyond a single therapeutic area
• Demonstrated track record building commercial conviction in new or ambiguous markets — not just maintaining existing forecasts
• Experience leading primary market research: study design, vendor management, and synthesis into commercial recommendations
• Strong financial modeling skills: bottoms-up and epidemiology-based revenue forecasting, DCF/rNPV analysis, sensitivity and scenario modeling
• Deep understanding of how pharmaceutical markets work: treatment paradigm dynamics, prescriber behavior, payer decision-making, launch benchmarks, competitive response
• Familiarity with innovative go-to-market models (value-based agreements, outcomes-based contracting, digital-first launch) and pharmaceutical channel architecture
• Confident communicator who can present a supported commercial view to senior leadership and stand behind it
• Strategy consulting or life sciences investment banking background; experience with RWE/HEOR; knowledge of FDA/EMA regulatory pathways; prior work building forecasting infrastructure across a BD organization