Business Development Lead, Life Sciences

OpenAI, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 210,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI, Inc. seeks a Life Sciences Partnerships Lead to shape and execute its global partnerships strategy across the life sciences ecosystem.

You will guide high-impact research and platform partnerships, translating scientific needs into product and program directions while collaborating with Research, Product, Engineering, and Legal teams. This role requires scientific fluency, strong judgment, and the ability to move opportunities from strategy to measurable impact, engaging senior

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, product partnerships, business development, or general management across life sciences and tech industries.
• Deep understanding of life sciences ecosystem, workflows, incentives, and dynamics.
• Experience leading complex partnerships spanning research, execution, terms, GTM, and platform alignment.

Responsibilities

• Lead full-lifecycle strategic partnerships from strategy to execution and reviews.
• Identify and prioritize opportunities across pharma, biotech, AI platforms, and research labs.
• Translate partner needs and scientific workflows into product and program recommendations.
• Structure partnerships with appropriate data, deployment, governance, and commercial models.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams to turn strategic relationships into ecosystem adoption and impact.
• Build trusted relationships with senior executives and scientific leaders across the ecosystem.

Skills

Strategic partnerships

Executive alignment

Commercial negotiation

Cross-functional leadership

Life sciences expertise

Market strategy

Job description

About the Team

OpenAI's Partnerships team develops external relationships that advance our research and products and expand how organizations can benefit from AI. Within life sciences, we work across pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, AI-native discovery platforms, research institutions, and experimental labs. We partner closely with Research, Product, Engineering, Safety, GTM, Legal, and Finance to turn complex scientific, technical, and commercial opportunities into durable partnerships.

About the Role

We are hiring a Life Sciences Partnerships Lead to shape and execute OpenAI's global life sciences partnership strategy. You will lead high-impact research, product, and platform partnerships across the life sciences ecosystem.

You will help determine where OpenAI should invest deeply with strategic partners, where we should enable a broader ecosystem, and how research, product, safety, and commercial considerations should shape our decisions. You will bring the voice of life sciences partners into OpenAI while helping internal teams turn ambiguous opportunities into clear decisions and executable plans.

This role requires scientific and commercial fluency, strong judgment, and the ability to move complex partnerships from strategy through execution and measurable impact.

In this role, you will:

• Lead full-lifecycle strategic partnerships, from partner strategy and executive alignment through scoping, commercial negotiation, execution, and ongoing operating reviews.

• Identify and prioritize opportunities across pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, AI-native discovery platforms, research institutions, and experimental labs.

• Work closely with Research, Product, and Engineering to translate partner needs, scientific workflows, technical constraints, and market dynamics into product and program recommendations.

• Partner with Legal, Finance, Safety, Research, and other cross-functional teams to structure partnerships with the appropriate data, deployment, governance, and commercial models.

• Coordinate with Health, GTM, GSI/MSSP enablement, and cloud service provider partnership teams to turn strategic relationships into broader ecosystem adoption and measurable impact.

• Build trusted relationships with senior executives, scientific leaders, and technical counterparts across the life sciences ecosystem.

• Bring structure to ambiguous opportunities, clear blockers across internal and external teams, and communicate decisions and tradeoffs clearly to senior leaders.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 12+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, product partnerships, business development, or general management across the life sciences and technology industries.

• Bring a deep understanding of the life sciences ecosystem, including its scientific workflows, business models, incentives, and key industry dynamics.

• Have led complex strategic partnerships spanning research or scientific collaboration, technical execution, commercial terms, go-to-market strategy, and long-term platform alignment.

• Can engage credibly with scientific, technical, product, and business leaders and translate between their priorities.

• Are an effective cross-functional leader who can drive progress through influence rather than formal authority.

• Communicate clearly, think structurally, and make sound prioritization decisions in fast-moving and ambiguous environments.

• Exercise exceptional judgment and integrity.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

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