Head of Translational Science

About Us
At Absentia Labs, we are building an AI-native IND-enabling safety platform for drug development.

Our mission is to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations make better safety decisions earlier in development through human-relevant, AI-driven predictive toxicology. We believe the future of drug development will be shaped by intelligent systems capable of generating actionable safety insights before significant time, capital, and patient risk are incurred.

Why This Role Matters

Absentia is entering a critical phase: translating technical progress, scientific validation, and regulatory momentum into meaningful adoption across pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations.
The challenge is no longer simply building accurate models. The challenge is ensuring those models fit naturally into the workflows, decision points, evidence standards, and risk frameworks used by toxicologists, nonclinical safety teams, translational medicine groups, pharmacologists, and drug developers.
This role exists to bridge that gap.
The Head of Translational Science will serve as the scientific translation layer between technology, regulatory strategy, and real-world drug development. This individual will ensure that everything Absentia builds solves meaningful problems, integrates with existing workflows, earns the trust of scientific stakeholders, and delivers measurable value to customers.
This is not a traditional research role. We are seeking a hands-on leader capable of connecting science, product, regulatory strategy, and customer needs to help define the adoption of AI-native safety assessment across the global drug development ecosystem.
This individual will own scientific-market fit at Absentia. They will be responsible for ensuring that our platform addresses the highest-value problems in drug development, generates evidence that customers trust, and evolves in ways that support adoption across pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and regulatory organizations.

Scientific Product Strategy

• Define how Absentia’s platform maps to real-world decision-making across discovery, candidate selection, IND-enabling development, translational medicine, and clinical risk assessment.

• Identify the highest-value workflows, use cases, and decision points for platform adoption.

• Partner with leadership to shape product strategy and roadmap priorities.
  Scientific Market Validation

• Develop and maintain relationships with toxicology, nonclinical safety, translational medicine, and pharmacology leaders across pharma, biotech, CROs, and regulatory organizations.

• Lead customer discovery efforts to identify unmet needs, adoption barriers, workflow requirements, and evidence expectations.

• Translate customer insights into platform requirements, validation priorities, and product roadmap recommendations.
  Scientific Workflow & Adoption Design

• Understand how safety decisions are made within pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations.

• Design workflows that make platform outputs actionable, interpretable, and trustworthy.

• Ensure product development aligns with how customers actually operate.

Evidence & Scientific Adoption Strategy

• Help define validation strategies, publication priorities, scientific collaborations, and evidence-generation initiatives.

• Support the development of scientific narratives that facilitate adoption.

• Help determine what evidence customers require before integrating the platform into decision-making processes.
  

Scientific Relationships & External Engagement

• Develop and manage relationships with key opinion leaders (KOLs), scientific advisors, academic collaborators, and industry experts.

• Identify opportunities for strategic scientific collaborations, validation studies, and external partnerships.

• Represent Absentia at scientific conferences, workshops, advisory meetings, and industry forums.
  

Cross-Functional Translation

• Partner closely with the CTO and the engineering team.

• Collaborate with Regulatory Strategy leadership.

• Support Business Development and Strategic Partnerships efforts.

• Translate customer requirements into technical and scientific priorities.

Scientific Communications & Publications

• Lead the development and execution of Absentia's scientific publication strategy

• Identify and prioritize high-impact publication opportunities, including validation studies, benchmark analyses, case studies, methodological advancements, and regulatory science initiatives.

• Serve as a primary author and contributor for peer-reviewed manuscripts, conference abstracts, scientific posters, white papers, technical reports, and thought leadership content.

• Collaborate with the CTO, Regulatory Strategy leadership, and scientific teams to translate technical and regulatory progress into scientifically rigorous publications and external communications.

• Coordinate with academic collaborators, key opinion leaders (KOLs), industry partners, and co-authors to develop, review, and submit scientific publications.

• Establish and manage a publication roadmap that supports platform validation, regulatory engagement, scientific credibility, and commercial adoption.

• Support preparation of scientific materials for major conferences, workshops, symposia, and industry events.

• Ensure scientific communications accurately reflect platform capabilities, validation results, regulatory positioning, and intended use cases.

• Help position Absentia as a recognized thought leader in AI-native safety assessment, computational toxicology, predictive safety sciences, and drug development innovation.

• Track publication impact, scientific engagement, and citation opportunities to continuously strengthen Absentia's scientific reputation and market presence.

• Develop publication strategies that support scientific credibility, regulatory engagement, customer adoption, fundraising, and category creation.
  

About You

We're looking for a scientifically rigorous, commercially aware, and highly collaborative leader who can operate at the intersection of drug development, product strategy, regulatory science, and customer adoption.

You Likely Have:

• PhD, PharmD, MD, DVM, or equivalent scientific training preferred.

• Experience in toxicology, translational medicine, pharmacology, drug development, or nonclinical safety.

• Experience within pharmaceutical, biotechnology, CRO, or translational research environments.

• Strong communication and stakeholder-management capabilities.

• Ability to operate in ambiguity and build new categories.

Preferred Experience

• Experience supporting IND-enabling programs, translational medicine initiatives, nonclinical safety assessment, or regulatory science activities.

• Experience interacting with pharmaceutical decision-makers and cross-functional development teams.

• Track record of scientific publications, conference presentations, and external stakeholder engagement.

Success Measures

Within the First 3–6 Months, You Will Have:

+ Develop a comprehensive understanding of customer workflows.
+ Conduct extensive stakeholder interviews.
+ Identify high-priority adoption opportunities.
+ Build trusted relationships with scientific stakeholders.

Within 6–12 Months, You Will Have:

+ Define a clear scientific product strategy.
+ Influence roadmap priorities through validated customer feedback.
+ Help shape pilot programs and external evaluations.
+ Build a network of scientific advisors and KOLs.

Within 12-24 Months, You Will Have:

+ Demonstrate measurable impact on platform adoption.
+ Influence major partnerships and scientific collaborations.
+ Contribute to validation studies and publication strategy.
+ Help define the category of AI-native safety assessment.
+ Established and executed a scientific publication roadmap supporting platform validation, regulatory engagement, and commercial adoption.
+ Led or co-authored multiple peer-reviewed manuscripts, conference abstracts, posters, or scientific presentations.
+ Developed relationships with external scientific collaborators and key opinion leaders to support publication and validation efforts.Influenced the design and execution of multiple customer pilots or structured evaluations.
+ Helped establish Absentia as a recognized scientific voice in predictive safety assessment.
+ Contributed to peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and external scientific collaborations.
+ Built a durable network of advisors, KOLs, and scientific partners that strengthens Absentia's market position.

What We Offer

• A front-row seat to the future of drug development and regulatory science.

• Collaboration with world-class scientists, engineers, and regulatory experts.

• Flexible work structure, deep autonomy, and a high-trust culture.

• The opportunity to help define a new market category

Compensation

This role is structured with a competitive base salary and performance-based bonus tied to execution quality, operational impact, and growth support.

Base Salary: $140,000 – $150,000
Bonus: $30K annual target bonus
Equity: 0.8 - 1%

How to Apply

Please submit your resume and a few words about why this role resonates with you. If you have personal projects, writing samples, or even GitHub links— please include them!

Our Commitment

We believe diverse teams build better solutions. Absentia Labs is proud to be an equal
opportunity employer. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds,
identities, and experiences.