Senior Director, Commercial Insights & Bd Forecasting

Eli Lilly Eli Lilly · Pharma · United States · Remote

This role is for a Senior Director of Business Development Forecasting & Analytics in the healthcare industry. The primary focus is on leading end-to-end commercial assessments for licensing, acquisition, and partnership opportunities, and building forecasting infrastructure. This involves developing expertise in new therapeutic areas, leading primary market research, and building flexible forecasting models. The role requires strong financial modeling skills and the ability to influence senior executives.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead commercial assessments from early landscape scoping through full deal-stage forecasting, with a clear and defensible POV at each stage
  2. Design and lead primary research programs (qualitative and quantitative) with physicians, payers, patients, and channel partners — especially where secondary data is thin
  3. Build flexible, reusable forecasting models with modular architecture, shared assumptions, and clear documentation
  4. Serve as the commercial analytics partner to BD leadership from initial screening through due diligence, term sheet development, and integration planning
  5. Present forecasts to senior executives with the confidence to defend assumptions, acknowledge uncertainty honestly, and make clear recommendations — not just ranges

Skills

Required

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

Nice to have

  • 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

What the JD emphasized

  • builds conviction
  • primary work
  • commercially defensible point of view
  • internal precedent exists
  • done the work and can stand behind it
  • build the forecasting infrastructure that raises the quality of BD analytics across the organization
  • 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
  • especially where secondary data is thin
  • 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
  • Build flexible, reusable forecasting models with modular architecture, shared assumptions, and clear documentation
  • Deploy approaches suited to data-scarce environments: analogue models, epidemiology-driven patient flow frameworks, expert elicitation, and scenario trees
  • Model the full commercial picture — uptake trajectories, competitive erosion, pricing and access assumptions, channel dynamics, lifecycle scenarios, and risk-adjusted probability of success
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Deep understanding of how pharmaceutical markets work: treatment paradigm dynamics, prescriber behavior, payer decision-making, launch benchmarks, competitive response
  • Confident communicator who can present a supported commercial view to senior leadership and stand behind it
  • Strategy consulting or life sciences investment banking background