Vice President or Senior Vice President, Head, Drug Discovery & Biology

R&D – Watertown, Massachusetts 

Acrivon is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing precision medicinesutilizing its proprietary GenerativePhosphoproteomics AP3 platform. The platform allows the company to interpret and quantify compound specific, drug-regulated pathway activity levels inside the intact cell in an unbiased manner, yielding terabytes of proprietary data and delivering rapid, actionable insights. The AP3 platform iscomprised of a growing suite of powerful,internally-developed tools, including the AP3 Data Portal, converting multimodal data into structured data for generative AI analyses, the AP3 Kinase Substrate Relationship Predictor and the AP3 Interactome. These distinctive capabilities enable the company to go beyond the limitations of traditional drug discovery, as well as current AI-based target-centric drug discovery and rapidly design highly differentiated compounds with desirable pathway effects through intracellular protein network analyses and advance these agents into the clinic for streamlined development. 

Acrivon is currently advancing its lead program, ACR-368 (also known asprexasertib), a selective small molecule inhibitor targeting CHK1 and CHK2 in a potentially registrational Phase 2 trial for EC. The company has received Fast Track designation from the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, for the investigation of ACR-368 as a monotherapy based onOncoSignature-predicted sensitivity in patients with EC. The FDA has granted a Breakthrough Device designation for the ACR-368OncoSignature assay for the identification of patients with endometrial cancer who maybenefit from ACR-368 treatment. 

In addition to ACR-368, Acrivon is alsoleveraging its proprietary Generative AI-drivenPhosphoproteomics AP3 platform for developing its co-crystallography-driven, internally discovered pipeline programs. These include ACR-2316, a novel, potent, selective WEE1/PKMYT1 inhibitor designed for superior single-agent activity. The Phase 1/2 study of ACR-2316 is advancing in a randomized dose expansion study. Initial data has shown a highly differentiated, favorable safety profile primarily limited to only transient, mechanism-based hematological adverse events,predominantly only neutropenia. Clinical activity has beenobserved across multiple tumor types, including SCLC, squamous NSCLC and lungadenocarcinoma, tumor types not shown sensitive to current single-agent WEE1 or PKMYT1 inhibitors. Durable clinical activity has beenobserved, with certain lung cancer subjectsremaining ontreatment more than one year. 

In addition, the company is in early IND-enabling studies with several potential first-in-class development candidates targeting CDK11. 

Position Summary 

Acrivon Therapeutics is seeking an accomplished R&D leader to provide scientific and strategic leadershipfor
the company'sdrugdiscovery and researchactivitieslocated in Boston, MA and in Lund, Sweden. TheVP/SVP willlead
DrugDiscovery,Biology, Translational Science,andDMPK/Toxicology andpartner with the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Development Officer, andbroaderclinical team inshapingthe precision medicinestrategy forEarlyClinical Development, to advance programs from target evaluation throughINDto clinical Phase 2 proof ofconcept.
 The
companyuses rational drug design and co-crystallography for chemical SAR andin particular leverages its proprietaryphosphoproteomics
platform, AP3, for biological SARacross all its drug discoveryprograms. 

Thecandidate is a data-driven,
accomplished, provenscientificleader with arecord ofpeer-reviewed papers inimpactful journals. The ideal candidate will have experience with pathway-based drug discoveryandOMICS data,in particular with MS-based proteomics andphosphoproteomics analyses andpreferably have experience and understanding of pathway mapping. (S)he will
have excellent communication skills
and bea
strong scientific integrator anddecision-maker who can synthesize complex datasets. The candidate willidentify the critical experiments needed to resolve uncertainty and translate emerging preclinical and clinical data into clear program and portfolio decisions. The candidate will have strong presentationand slide-making skills
with ability to distill complex data intoclear, powerfulmessages depending on the audience, both external investors, pharma partners, and analysts,Advisors, and Board members, as well as for internal teams and stakeholders. 

The position reports to theChief Executive Officer and will befully on site, five days per weekat Acrivon Therapeutics’ corporate headquarters in Watertown, MA.As is customary in senior leadership roles, the candidate will also from time to time be expected to make him/herself available for urgent mattersas needed outside normal business hours. 

Duties and
Responsibilities 

• Provide scientific and strategic leadership across Acrivon'sdrug
  discoveryportfolio. 

• Help drive thedata-drivenanalysis ofhit and lead
  proprietaryphosphoproteomic data utilizingAcrivon’s
  AP3 platform,to uncover mechanism of action, and critical desirable cellular pathway effects early on in programs forparticular scaffolds and series. 

• Integrate discovery, biology, pharmacology, translational, DMPK/tox and clinical datain close collaboration with the biomarker team, computational/data sciences team, proteomics team, and clinical team as well as individual stakeholders. 

• Drive program prioritization and key decisions from targetselection and lead optimization through development candidate nomination, IND-enablingdevelopment and clinical translation. 

• Partner with functional leaders to define critical experiments, decision criteria, developmentrisks and mitigation strategies. 

• Guide translational strategies encompassing mechanism, PK/PD, biomarkers, patient selection, and dose and schedule optimization. 

• Partner with Clinical Development to interpret emerging clinical PK, PD,safety and efficacy data and translate findings into development strategies. 

• Provide scientific oversight of external collaborators,CROs and consultants. 

• InclosepartnershipwithDataScience,BiomarkerDevelopment andBiology
  functions,
  co-lead and develop R&D leaders whileestablishing clear accountability and effective cross-functional decision-making. 
• Represent R&D in executive leadership and Board discussions.
   

Qualifications 

• Advanced degree inlife science field (PhD, MD, MD/PhD or equivalent). 

• A minimum of
  15 years (VP)
  or20 years (SVP) relevant
  biotechnology/pharmaceutical R&D experience with significant leadership responsibility. 

• Outstanding oral and written communication skills and swift ability toleada multi-disciplinarydrug discovery and biologyteamacrossWatertown, MA and Lund, Swedenlocations. 

• Data-driven individual with strong analytical skills and ability to rationally uncover mechanism-of-action of compounds based on high resolution proteomic andphosphoproteomic data of compound pathway effects and mechanisms. 

• Proven
  experience advancing small-molecule programs from discovery through IND-enabling development, withbroad understanding of drug discovery, pharmacology, translational science, PK/PD,DMPK and toxicology. 

• Strong oncology drug
  development experience withsome clinical
  development experience strongly preferred;additional
  experience inimmunology and inflammation desirable. 

• Advancedexpertise
  in standard software programs and ideally also in variouspublicly available OMICS analytics and visualization tools. 

• Highly developedexpertise ingeneratingvisually appealing slides distilling complex data into powerful messages forexternal stakeholders, including investors, analysts, bankers, as well as for Boardand Advisory meetings and internal teams and stakeholders. 

• Demonstrated ability to integrate multidisciplinary datasets and make high-qualityresearchdecisionsevenwhen navigatinguncertainty. 
• Strong executive-level scientific communication and collaboration skills and ability to interact andcollaborate closely with C-level team members.