Associate Director, Centre for Functional Assays & Screening Therapeutics Discovery (Måløv, Capital Region of Denmark, DK)
About this opportunity
Your impact begins here
Lead the people and capabilities that make functional assays possible across our early drug discovery portfolio. As Associate Director in the Centre for Functional Assays & Screening (CFAS), you will lead a department of 12 scientists and technicians, with responsibility for delivering the cell lines that enable high-quality and high-throughput drug candidate screening.
Your impact will extend beyond your own team. You will bring together our Molecular Biology & Cell Line Development community, shape laboratory operations and automation, and work closely with scientific partners to turn research needs into clear priorities. As part of CFAS's shared co-leadership model, you will also help set the direction of the centre and take joint responsibility for its success.
What you’ll bring
You are an experienced research people leader who can combine scientific understanding with clear priorities and thoughtful decision-making. You build trust, listen to different perspectives and are comfortable sharing responsibility with peer leaders.
Demonstrated people leadership experience, preferably at least two years, including responsibility for team development, priorities and delivery
A PhD in life sciences or equivalent scientific qualifications and relevant experience
Scientific expertise relevant to molecular biology, cell line development or cell-based research, with an understanding of functional assay requirements
A customer-oriented mindset and strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to understand scientific needs
Proven track record of improving research workflows and laboratory operations, with demonstrated experience leading laboratory automation initiatives.
Ability to set clear direction and expectations while collaborating with peer leaders to make joint decisions and share accountability for CFAS.
What you’ll do
Lead and develop a team of scientists and technicians, creating an environment built on trust, psychological safety and clear accountability
Lead the Molecular Biology & Cell Line Development community, developing capabilities and ensuring timely delivery of cell lines that meet functional assay needs
Build strong partnerships with internal stakeholders, translating scientific needs into priorities and balancing project commitments with team capacity
Take operational leadership of CFAS laboratory facilities, setting direction for laboratory automation and improving workflows, facility use and efficiency
Ensure scientific quality and timely delivery of two high-priority CFAS commitments: in vitro immunogenicity assessment of early candidates and transfer of robust cell-based potency assays to CMC
Share leadership with your two fellow CFAS leaders, jointly setting priorities, developing capabilities and coordinating resources across the centre
Who you’ll work with
You will join CFAS within Drug Function & Screening, part of Therapeutics Discovery. The centre consists of three teams working together to enable functional assay development, screening and characterisation in early drug discovery. You will work side by side with your two fellow CFAS leaders. Through this shared co-leadership model, you will make joint decisions, coordinate resources and build capabilities that support the centre as a whole. It is a collaborative research environment where colleagues work across disciplines and therapeutic areas to help progress novel therapeutics from research ideas towards lead candidate selection.
What you can expect here
You will have the opportunity to combine people leadership, scientific direction and operational responsibility in a role with impact across early drug discovery. You will shape cell line capabilities and laboratory operations while developing a skilled team and building strong partnerships across research.
The environment calls for open collaboration and shared leadership. You will have the scope to improve how the centre works while ensuring that scientific quality and reliable delivery remain at the heart of its contribution.
Salary: For this role, the Annual Base Salary ranges from 847,000 to 1,245,100 DKK (DK), corresponding to the level of the position.
The placement within the salary range will be assessed during the recruitment process based on the candidate’s skills, competencies, knowledge, and relevant experience.
Incentives and Benefits: The salary package may include short-term and/or long-term incentives as well as other employee benefits based on position level, location, functional area and relevant market benchmarks.
Learn more about our Reward Philosophy .
Start now
Your impact begins today. If you are ready to develop people, strengthen our cell line capabilities and help shape laboratory operations within CFAS, apply for the Associate Director, Centre for Functional Assay & Screening role in Måløv, Denmark.
Application deadline:
4th November 2026
We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants.
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Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 292 comparable Associate Director Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research roles across 47 biopharma companies.
Salary context
142 of 292 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.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 292 comparable roles
+ 12 more countries
Seniority mix
292 of 292 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
28 of 292 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
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.
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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.
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.