Mechelen, GB
Sr Manager, Global Library Service
Alfasigma is a privately held global healthcare company founded over 75 years ago in Italy, where it remains headquartered today in Bologna and Milan. The Group operates in over 100 markets spanning Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa.
Over three years ago, we embarked on a transformative journey to become a truly global innovative healthcare company with a leading focus on Gastrointestinal (GI) health. We have experienced remarkable growth, nearly doubled our revenues, expanding geographically, and integrating several key acquisitions. We have also evolved our portfolio, expanded into rare and specialty segments, and strengthened our pipeline and people's capabilities.
But our journey is far from complete! In fact, this is just the beginning of a bold new chapter in Alfasigma's history. We are committed to advancing innovation and leveraging our deep expertise to provide better health and a better quality of life for patients and consumers worldwide and expand our reach across diverse markets.
In this role as Senior Manager, you will serve as the organization’s subject-matter expert for licensed information resources, ensuring employees have timely, cost-effective, ethical and compliant access to the external information they need. You will oversee strategic vendor and portfolio management, budgets, information governance, advanced literature searching and stakeholder education, while ensuring the responsible and compliant use of AI in scientific research and information retrieval.
This position can be based in either the UK or the US.
Purpose of the Job
- Serve as the organization’s senior subject-matter expert for licensed information resources and works closely with Procurement, Legal, Compliance, IT, R&D, Medical Affairs, Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory Affairs, Business Development, and other functions.
- Ensure that employees have timely, cost-effective, ethical, and compliant access to the external information required to support research & development, medical, regulatory, safety, any other relevant business stakeholders in business decision-making.
- Responsible for budget oversightstrategic vendor and portfolio management, research ethics, managing library contractors, information governance, advanced literature searching, and stakeholder education.
- Ensure responsible and compliant use of artificial intelligence in scientific research and information retrieval, including appropriate source verification, transparency, copyright compliance, confidentiality, and human oversight.
Principal Accountabilities
Budget oversight, Vendor Management, Licensing & Negotiation
- Lead negotiations and renewals for scientific journals, databases, literature platforms, competitive intelligence resources, document delivery services, and other licensed information products.
- Develop negotiation strategies based on utilization, business need, benchmarking, duplication, user demand, and total cost of ownership.
- Partner with Procurement and Legal teams to negotiate favorable pricing, licensing terms, access rights, permitted uses, AI-related contractual provisions, and data-use conditions.
- Maintain a strategic view of the information-resource portfolio and identify opportunities to consolidate, replace, expand, or discontinue resourcesto work within budget constraints
- Evaluate new products and vendors through structured demonstrations, trials, structured user feedback, competitive assessments, and cost-benefit analyses.
- Monitor usage and expenditures and develop metrics demonstrating ROI, cost avoidance, efficiency gains, and organizational value.
- Serve as the primary relationship manager and escalation point for key information vendors.
Research Ethics/Integrity, Information Governance & Responsible use of AI
- Serve as a corporate resource for ethical and responsible use of scientific information and AI-assisted research tools.
- Develop guidance for compliant use of semantic search, summarization, automated evidence retrieval, and other AI-enabled information tools.
- Promote a human-in-the-loop approach in which AI-generated results, summaries, references, and conclusions are appropriately verified against authoritative source material.
- In collaboration with Scientific Publication Leads educate users about risks, including predatory publishing and paper mills, fabricated citations, inaccurate summarization, loss of scientific context, algorithmic bias, inappropriate disclosure of confidential information, and overreliance on AI-generated output.
- Partner with Legal, Compliance, IT, Information Security, Privacy, and other relevant company stakeholders to establish appropriate governance for AI-enabled research tools.
- Advise employees regarding copyright, licensing restrictions, document sharing, reuse of figures and tables, text and data mining, and appropriate use of licensed content with AI systems.
- Promote research integrity, reproducibility, appropriate attribution, source transparency, and responsible information practices across the organization.
Literature Searching and Content Management
- Support R&D, Medical Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Clinical Development, Pharmacovigilance, Medical Information, HEOR and other functions with evidence retrieval.
- Translate complex scientific questions into rigorous, reproducible search strategies.
- Provide literature searches for regulatory, safety, clinical, product-development, and strategic business needs.
- Advise users on database selection, search methodology, controlled vocabulary, search documentation, and appropriate application of AI-assisted search techniques.
- Maintain expertise in emerging scientific information platforms, discovery technologies, and evidence-retrieval methodologies.
- Manage content management system, library SharePoint, document delivery and usage statistics.
Competitive & Business Intelligence
- Supports competitive intelligence needs with regard to portfolio, pipeline, business development, patents, and strategic planning.
- Identify and evaluate appropriate external sources for pipeline, clinical trial, market, scientific, and competitive intelligence.
- Partner with business and scientific functions to distinguish between information resources best managed centrally by the Corporate Library and specialized resources requiring departmental ownership.
- Support due diligence and other high-priority strategic information requests as needed.
User Education & Research Enablement
- Develop and deliver training on literature searching, database use, scientific information retrieval, copyright, research ethics, and responsible use of (generative) AI.
- Create practical guidance, and best-practice materials for employees.
- Provide individual and group consultation to improve search effectiveness and information literacy.
- Introduce employees to new library resources and platform capabilities and encourage effective adoption.
- Help researchers understand both the capabilities and limitations of AI-assisted research tools.
- Promote efficient research workflows that reduce unnecessary searching, duplicate article purchases, and reliance on abstracts when licensed full text is available.
Library Strategy & Cross-Functional Leadership
- Develop and execute a corporate information-resource strategy aligned with scientific and business priorities.
- Serve as the organization’s subject-matter expert for scientific information resources, licensing, literature retrieval, and information-use practices.
- Partner with senior stakeholders to anticipate emerging information needs and recommend appropriate resources and services.
- Establish standards for determining which information resources should be centrally funded and managed.
- Develop and report meaningful performance indicators for global library services, including resource utilization, cost avoidance, user engagement, research efficiency, and training effectiveness.
- Monitor emerging technologies and recommend opportunities to improve scientific discovery, information access, and organizational efficiency.
Who you are
- At least 10 years of experience as an information specialist/librarian in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology company is preferred; significant professional experience in medical/scientific information environment will be considered.
- Demonstrated success managing budgets, negotiating complex information-resource contracts and managing vendor relationships.
- Advanced experience conducting biomedical and scientific literature searches.
- Experience with competitive intelligence and business information resources.
- Demonstrated knowledge of copyright, Open Access publishing, licensing, information governance, and the ethical use of licensed content.
- Experience evaluating or implementing AI-enabled platforms.
- Experience developing and delivering professional training to colleagues across an entire enterprise
- Experience working effectively across scientific, technical, legal, procurement, and business functions
Education
- Master of Science in Library and Information Science (MS/LIS, MLIS, MLS, or equivalent) from an accredited institution. Candidates with a Master’s degree in a scientific discipline, such as biology, biomedical sciences, pharmacology, chemistry, public health, or a related life-sciences field will also be considered.
- Additional formal business education or training, such as graduate-level coursework, an executive education program, certificate program, or other demonstrated training in business, finance, negotiation, procurement, strategy, or management is desirable
Competencies & Major Skills
- Exceptional vendor negotiation and relationship-management skills.
- Advanced scientific and biomedical searching expertise.
- Strong understanding of the pharmaceutical R&D and medical information environment.
- Knowledge of copyright, Open Access CCLs, licensing, research ethics, various AI platforms, and information governance.
- Sophisticated understanding of the opportunities and risks associated with generative AI and AI-assisted scientific research.
- Ability to critically evaluate AI-generated scientific information
- Strong analytical research skills.
- Excellent presentation, teaching, and written communication skills.
- Financial acumen and the ability to build effective business cases for information investments.
- Ability to communicate effectively with scientists, physicians, executives, procurement professionals, attorneys, and technology teams.
- Strong independent judgment and the ability to manage multiple high-priority projects in a fast-paced environment.
- Certification as a copyright specialist preferred
- Membership and leadership in industry-related professional societies preferred
- Experience working remotely
General skills
- Focus on accountability and ownership
- Teamworking
- Strong cross-functional leadership and relationship management skills
- Strong communication, presentation and written skills
- Strong attention to detail
Why Join Alfasigma:
At Alfasigma, we foster a culture where the courage to innovate is key to our success.
We offer a competitive salary, comprehensive benefits, and extensive opportunities for professional growth and development.
Our commitment to people and patients is at the heart of everything we do. We value diversity and welcome individuals with unique perspectives and experiences. We believe that open-mindedness, collaboration, and a shared passion for innovation are essential to achieving meaningful progress.
Join Alfasigma and become part of a forward-thinking team dedicated to shaping the future of the pharmaceutical industry.