Merck KGaA Posted August 15, 2026

Director, Search and Evaluation Cardiometabolic & Endocrinology (Seaport MA)

Boston, Massachusetts, United States FULL_TIME
BD&L & Strategic Planning Cardiovascular / CVRM Director

Merck KGaA is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Work Your Magic with us! Start your next chapter and join EMD Serono.

Ready to explore, break barriers, and discover more? We know you’ve got big plans – so do we! Our colleagues across the globe love innovating with science and technology to enrich people’s lives with our solutions in Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics. Together, we dream big and are passionate about caring for our rich mix of people, customers, patients, and planet. That's why we are always looking for curious minds that see themselves imagining the unimaginable with us.

United As One for Patients, our purpose in Healthcare is to help create, improve and prolong lives. We develop medicines, intelligent devices and innovative technologies in therapeutic areas such as Oncology, Neurology and Fertility. Our teams work together across 6 continents with passion and relentless curiosity in order to help patients at every stage of life. Joining our Healthcare team is becoming part of a diverse, inclusive and flexible working culture, presenting great opportunities for personal development and career advancement across the globe.

This role does not offer sponsorship for work authorization. External applicants must be eligible to work in the US.

Your Role:

Drive access to key external innovations from biotech/biopharma companies globally for Cardiometabolic, Fertility & Endocrinology (CM +F&E), enabling critical advancement of the company pipeline; search and evaluate external opportunities and lead scientific and technical assessment process for potential partners, acquisitions, or licensing deals ;

Take full responsibility for Initial Assessments (IAs) as the initial step in a Due Diligence process with key functional experts and present high quality decision making documents to the Investment Board (IB) and lead respective multi-functional teams

Partner with internal stakeholders to identify search priorities and support defining the CM + F&E partnering strategy

Develop and keep overview of External Innovation landscape within investment priorities in alignment with the CM+F&E Therapeutic Areas;

Drive proactive search to identify assets of interest and potential partners and guide partner selection

Select and prioritize opportunities for further evaluation in close collaboration with Business Development counterparts

Maintain overview of search and evaluation activities in CM+F&E and maintain a longlist of potential opportunities

Oversee and guide filtering of potential opportunities (e.g., unsolicited, VC portfolios, conferences); execute CDA and provide aligned feedback to stakeholders

Benchmarking of potential partners based on aligned criteria to elucidate differentiation

Build and maintain external network (e.g., biotech/pharma/VC) and represent/position us externally towards potential partners

Collaborate with BD colleagues  for partnering discussions to assess viability / feasibility of partnership.

Consult on assessment of risks and mitigations and ensure seamless transition of IA projects to DD Lead

Drive identification of big rocks and consolidation of IB decision-making document to make a go/no-go decision

Provide decision making documentation to IB and DRB level senior management to proceed into Due Diligence activities to assess Big Rocks or full data packages of external opportunities

Strategic Impact

Generating strategic value by identifying high value opportunities to develop and expand our innovative pipeline of opportunities in CM+F&E as key strategic therapeutic areas

Scope of People Responsibility:

Develop and mentor talents (e.g. GoGlobal Trainees and Short-Term Assignees)

Lead multi-functional assessment teams to generate IAs, DD scopes

Who You Are

Minimum Qualifications:

University degree ( PhD) in pharmaceutical science or an equivalent qualification with high expertise, strong network, and substantial R&D experience in respective investment priority field

Preferred Qualifications:

5+ years experience with 2+ years in BD&L / EI

Thorough understanding of the pharmaceutical drug discovery/development process

Scientific profile with substantial R&D experience

Strong leadership acumen to lead cross functional teams to develop search scopes, External Innovation strategy and IAs

Strong presentation skills enabling senior management decision making

Location:   Seaport MA

Pay Range for this position: $$167,400 - $251,000

The offer range represents the anticipated low and high end of the base pay compensation for this position. The actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level of experience, education, skills, and other job-related factors. Position may be eligible for sales or performance-based bonuses. Benefits offered by the Company include health insurance, paid time off (PTO), retirement contributions, and other perquisites. For more information click here .

What we offer: We are curious minds that come from a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences. We believe that this variety drives excellence and innovation, strengthening our ability to lead in science and technology. We are committed to creating access and opportunities for all to develop and grow at your own pace. Join us in building a culture of inclusion and belonging that impacts millions and empowers everyone to work their magic and champion human progress!

Apply now and become a part of a team that is dedicated to Sparking Discovery and Elevating Humanity!

Job details

Seniority
Director
Function
BD&L & Strategic Planning
Therapeutic area
Cardiovascular / CVRM
Location
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active BD&L & Strategic Planning role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 33 comparable Director BD&L & Strategic Planning roles across 12 biopharma companies.

33Comparable roles tracked
32Currently active
12Companies hiring similar roles
7Countries represented

Salary context

12 of 33 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Director, Group Portfolio Execution · Merck KGaA $151,900/yr – $227,900/yr
Highest disclosed · Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, External Surfaces · Pfizer $214,900/yr – $358,100/yr
Peer group range $189,900 – $286,500 (median $240,325)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 33 comparable roles

United States16
China6
United Kingdom4
Germany4
Spain1
Korea (the Republic of)1

+ 1 more countries

Seniority mix

33 of 33 peers have a known seniority level

Director25
Senior Director5
Principal3

Therapeutic area mix

4 of 33 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Immunology3
Oncology1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

60%similar
Novartis Cambridge (USA), United States Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Novartis East Hanover, United States Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Genetics Center (USA) Tarrytown, United States Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Pfizer New York City, United States Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Amgen Inc. Remote, United States Director
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Amgen Inc. Remote, United States Director
Same function Same seniority Same country

Notify me about similar jobs

Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

60%
Director, Search & Evaluation (Platforms & AI)
Novartis · Cambridge (USA), United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Director, AI Experience Design Lead
Pfizer · New York City, United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
External Research & Development - Technology Innovation Business Development, Director
Amgen Inc. · South San Francisco, United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Director, Commercial and Alliance Partnerships
Sandoz · Princeton (New Jersey), United States · Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.