Decision Science Lead

Decision Science Lead

Do you want to be part of an inclusive team that works to develop innovative therapies for patients? Every day, we are driven to develop and deliver innovative and effective new medicines to patients and physicians.  If you want to be part of this exciting work, you belong at Astellas!

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are committed to turning innovative science into medical solutions that bring value and hope to patients and their families. Keeping our focus on addressing unmet medical needs and conducting our business with ethics and integrity enables us to improve the health of people throughout the world. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.com.

This position is based in Northbrook, Illinois. Remote work from certain states may be permitted in accordance with Astellas’ Responsible Flexibility Guidelines. Candidates interested in remote work are encouraged to apply.

Purpose:

Astellas is building Decision Intelligence capabilities to enable faster, more consistent, and higher-quality strategic and operational decisions.

This newly created role will establish the foundational capabilities needed to optimize end-to-end value chain decisions and outcomes through the application of advanced decision intelligence models. By developing and scaling a core ecosystem of model assets, these capabilities will continuously enhance the speed, consistency, and quality of decisions across PDM.

Essential Job Responsibilities:

• Define and Lead Strategy: Develop and execute the overarching strategy to optimize end-to-end value chain decisions through enterprise data and decision intelligence models.
• Engage and Translate Needs: Partner with business stakeholders to translate complex requirements into practical decision intelligence solutions (e.g. digital twins, ML models, optimization and trade-off tools).
• Prioritize and Roadmap Execution: Build and manage a portfolio of high-impact, scalable models, prioritizing based on business value, and define clear execution roadmaps that align with strategic goals and resource plans.
• Design and Deploy Scalable Solutions: Create reusable, interoperable model assets supported by standardized, agile development workflows to ensure high-quality and timely deployment.
• Guide Model Development: Provide direction and technical guidance to model build teams, supporting best practices in model design, prototyping, testing, and performance monitoring.
• Optimize and Govern: Establish lifecycle management processes and monitoring metrics to continuously improve model quality, operational efficiency, and business impact.
• Enable Data and Insights: Collaborate with Digital-X teams to ensure access to high-quality data and design intuitive, AI-enabled dashboards that turn model outputs into actionable business insights.
• Foster Innovation and Capability: Build external partnerships to explore next-generation decision intelligence tools, and develop a sustainable, cross-functional talent pipeline to future-proof organizational capability.

Qualifications Required:

• MS/PhD in Chemical/Industrial Engineering or other STEM fields is required
• At least 10-15 years of Data Science/Decision Sciences/Operations Research experience leading model-based solution deployment into actual business operations is required
• At least 5 years of pharmaceutical industry experience with in-depth understanding of E2E supply chain processes (e.g. drug development, process scale-up, manufacturing/quality release and NPI launch) is required. Experience with advanced cell and gene therapies is preferred
• Experience with deployment of decision modelling tools such as Simio, Anylogic, Gurobi, Cplex or similar tools applied to pharmaceutical drug development or manufacturing/supply chain use cases is required
• Experience with semantic knowledge and data management tools such as NEO4J is strongly preferred
• Fluency in English language (read, write, listen, speak)

Working Environment:

• At Astellas, we recognize the importance of work/life balance, and we are proud to offer a hybrid working solution allowing time to connect with colleagues at the office with the flexibility to also work from home. We believe this will optimize the most productive work environment for this position to succeed and deliver. Hybrid work based in Americas region may be permitted in accordance with Astellas’ Responsible Flexibility Guidelines.

Salary Range:  $197,400 – $310,200  (Final compensation will be determined based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to skills, experience and organizational equity considerations)

Benefits:

• Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance
• Generous Paid Time Off options, including Vacation and Sick time, plus national holidays including year-end shut down
• 401(k) match and annual company contribution
• Company paid life insurance
• Annual Corporate Bonus and Quarterly Sales Incentive for eligible positions
• Long Term Incentive Plan for eligible positions
• Company-paid fleet vehicle for eligible positions
• Referral bonus program

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