Director/Sr. Director – Osteoporosis/Bone Health

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.  Location: Boston, MA or Indianapolis, IN About Lilly At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people worldwide. As a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, we are committed to advancing innovation in areas of high unmet medical need. With a proven track record in obesity research and a growing focus on women’s health, we seek an experienced discovery leader to help build a portfolio of transformative therapies to improve outcomes for women everywhere and arrest age-related functional decline across genders. This role offers the opportunity to shape strategy, drive impactful drug discovery and development programs, and contribute to Lilly’s mission of scientific excellence and patient-centered care.

Summary The Director / Senior Director will serve as the scientific and strategic leader for osteoporosis preclinical discovery, responsible for defining, implementing, and continuously evolving Lilly’s preclinical discovery strategy in osteoporosis. This leader will drive the integration of human biology, translational science, and preclinical models to establish a differentiated and execution-focused discovery framework. The role includes advancing programs from target identification through preclinical development toward early clinical translation, ensuring decisions are guided by robust, decision-enabling data. The successful candidate will play a central role in shaping the osteoporosis pipeline, building critical capabilities, and establishing best-in-class approaches to target prioritization and validation within the Women’s Health portfolio.

Strategy Leadership Build and lead an innovative lab focused on novel approaches to identify and validate targets/pathways for osteoporosis. Bring novel, high potential targets into the pipeline for therapeutic approaches for the treatment of osteoporosis. Define and implement the preclinical discovery strategy for osteoporosis, including target discovery, validation and prioritization frameworks, experimental approaches, and decision criteria Drive portfolio prioritization, articulating differentiation, risk, and alignment with clinical and regulatory expectations Build and evolve preclinical and translational capabilities (internal and external) to support execution of the strategy Identify and shape external opportunities, including academic collaborations, CRO partnerships, and business development opportunities Ensure alignment of osteoporosis strategy with broader Women’s Health and musculoskeletal portfolio objectives Scientific & Project Leadership Lead osteoporosis discovery programs, driving target identification, validation, and progression of therapeutic candidates Design and implement end-to-end experimental strategies across in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo systems Generate decision-enabling data to support program advancement and portfolio decisions Translational Strategy Define and implement translational approaches linking mechanisms to clinical outcomes, including biomarker strategies and PK/PD relationships Ensure preclinical programs are designed to enable clear clinical differentiation, incorporating relevant endpoints such as bone density, bone strength, and microarchitecture Cross-functional Leadership Serve as biology lead on