External Partner Manager

This role serves as a bridge between BMS Product Development and the external manufacturing ecosystem. The External Partner Manager is the single point of contact for our Strategic Sourcing & Procurement teams and the go‑to person for managing relationships with CDMOs that handle drug substance and drug product manufacturing.

Key Responsibilities

• Participate in joint steering committees with senior leaders from BMS and external partners, driving conversations that shape pipeline outcomes.
• Lead Virtual Development Operation Teams (VDOTs) to hold external partners accountable for performance, ensuring timelines, quality and commitments are met.
• Build strategies that future‑prove our pipeline by collaborating with PD, Quality and Legal, developing sourcing strategies that bring innovation and bridge technology gaps.
• Translate complex development requirements into Statements of Work, Master Service Agreements and Requests for Proposals, leveraging scientific fluency at the negotiating table.
• Own the full partner lifecycle from qualification through decommissioning, steering vendor onboarding with Global Quality and GOEHSS to ensure partners are set up for success from day one.

Benefits

• Broaden your career horizon with cross‑functional breadth spanning strategy, commercial negotiation and operational leadership.
• See your work matter at scale, directly supporting a portfolio of assets moving through development and into manufacturing.
• Build your leadership identity by leading matrix teams, influencing without authority and representing BMS in senior‑level governance forums.
• Gain commercial fluency while staying close to science, negotiating terms, shaping agreements and developing sourcing strategies.
• Work at the frontier of external innovation, gaining insight into emerging CDMO capabilities.

Qualifications

• Degree in chemistry, pharmaceutical science, engineering or a related discipline (BS, MS or PhD) and at least five years of hands‑on experience in small‑molecule drug substance and drug product development, clinical or commercial manufacturing.
• Naturally builds trust with colleagues, partners and leadership.
• Can hold technical conversations with formulation scientists and legal teams in the same afternoon.
• Comfortable leading teams who don’t directly report to you.
• Believes the best outcomes come from collaboration, not command.

On-site Protocol

BMS has an occupancy structure that determines where an employee is required to conduct their work. This structure includes site-essential, site-by-design, field-based and remote-by-design jobs. The occupancy type that you are assigned is determined by the nature and responsibilities of your role. Site-essential roles require 100% of shifts onsite at your assigned facility. Site-by-design roles may be eligible for a hybrid work model with at least 50% onsite at your assigned facility. For these roles, onsite presence is considered an essential job function and is critical to collaboration, innovation, productivity and a positive company culture. For field-based and remote-by-design roles the ability to physically travel to visit customers, patients or business partners and to attend meetings on behalf of BMS as directed is an essential job function.

Supporting People With Disabilities

BMS is dedicated to ensuring people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants may request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. For any part of the recruitment process, direct inquiries to adastaffingsupport@bms.com.

Candidate Rights

BMS will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

Data Protection

We will never request payments, financial information or social security numbers during our application or recruitment process. Any data processed in connection with role applications will be treated in accordance with applicable data privacy policies and regulations.