Business Lead, AI-native Target Identification & Validation (TIDVAL)

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Job Description: Business Lead, AI-native Target Identification & Validation (TIDVAL): Takeda is transforming how medicines are discovered by building a new Research engine where AI, advanced data platforms, and laboratory automation are embedded directly into how scientists design and discover molecules, run experiments, and make decisions. Our Labs of Tomorrow vision connects computational science, scientific data, and automated experimental workflows into a closed-loop discovery engine that will enable us to design smarter studies, shorten learning cycles, and deliver clearer evidence earlier in discovery with the ultimate goal of discovering differentiated medicines for patients.

The Business Lead, AI-native Target Identification & Validation is central to realizing this vision. The scientist will be responsible for Takeda’s next-generation target identification and validation AI-native software product owning the scientific vision, customer experience, product strategy, roadmap, adoption, and ultimately the value it creates for our drug discovery. The Business Lead will define and answer what the target evaluation environment should be in a future where AI agents, foundational disease models, world models, predictive models, and human genetic, multi-omic, and clinical data at scale are the basis of how disease populations are stratified, genetic linkages to disease are established, and target hypotheses are built and defended. Our ambition is for this product to become the primary environment through which Takeda scientists will identify, evaluate, and select the targets behind the medicines of the future.

Purpose: The Business: Lead, AI-native Target Identification &: Validation is a foundational leadership role, acting as the as: the owner and of Takeda’s: Target Identification & Validation product family: , an integrated family of capabilities spanning the target journey from initial biological hypothesis through validated, project-ready target. The role refines the strategic vision for future-state AI-native TIDVAL Labs of Tomorrow capabilities and drives its translation into AI-enabled research workflows, product direction, adoption, and measurable scientific and business value by working with both relevant internal and external stakeholders.

The successful candidate will lead this portfolio as a business owner on the side of the internal customer, combining deep target biology and target validation expertise with computational, data, and technology fluency: to ensure that the products built are science-first, grounded in real pre-project research workflows, and capable of strengthening the target selection decisions that set portfolio direction. Your customers will be Takeda’s disease area biologists, human geneticists, computational and systems biologists, bioinformaticians, translational scientists and therapeutic area leaders. The role carries sufficient technical fluency to provide informed direction on the strategic technology choices underpinning the product family, at the level of intent and trade-off rather than detailed evaluation or execution.

This is a unique opportunity: for an exceptional leader who can combine deep understanding of target identification and validation science with strong computational, data, and technology fluency: , and who will ensure that the applications developed are scientifically grounded, technically actionable, adoptable by end users, and aligned with Takeda’s business priorities.

This role operates at the program leadership level, collaborating directly with Takeda’s “Labs of Tomorrow” leadership team to shape portfolio priorities, resolve strategic tradeoffs, and ensure future-state target identification and validation capabilities advance from vision to measurable scientific and business impact. The role provides day-to-day direction to the technical leads and development squads working on the Target Identification & Validation product family, and is interacting closely with the SME leads. The role will also interface with the other Product…