The Problem
Severe mental illness affects over 15 million adults in the United States. Schizophrenia. Schizoaffective disorder. Bipolar I. Treatment-resistant depression. These are the conditions the rest of healthcare has systematically failed to build for.
What makes this problem different from most of healthcare is that the tools to solve it do not exist. The clinical protocols, the measurement science, the precision medicine, the technology to deliver coordinated longitudinal outpatient care for this population. None of it has been built. This is a frontier problem, and it requires frontier science and care delivery to solve.
We are developing all of it. The care, the science, the technology.
Who We Are
Amae Health is a Series B, venture-backed Public Benefit Corporation delivering psychiatry-led specialty outpatient care for people with complex mental illness through high-acuity, in-person clinics in California, New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.
Our integrated model brings psychiatry, therapy, primary care, dietitians, and community support together under one roof. Leading health systems, including NewYork-Presbyterian, Cedars-Sinai, Mass General Brigham, Novant Health, and CommonSpirit, collaborate with us to expand this level of care.
Alongside care delivery, we are building the science and technology the field has long lacked: proprietary clinical protocols, novel measurement, and an AI-driven data platform. Patients typically come to us after a hospitalization and stay with us from partial hospitalization through intensive outpatient and maintenance care. That produces a longitudinal, multimodal clinical record: standardized assessments, clinical documentation, speech and language data, labs, and wearables, organized in one data model.
The Team
We are clinicians, operators, technologists, and scientists who chose Amae because the problem is hard and the stakes are real. Every function exists to serve one goal: better outcomes for the people we care for.
The Role
Amae is hiring its first Director of Life Sciences Partnerships to build how we work with pharma and biotech. This is not a data sales role. Data licensing is one tool; the job is multi-year partnerships with medical affairs, commercial, and R&D teams that draw on our clinics, psychiatrists, research participants, measurement science, and data.
You will report to the CEO, set the strategy, close the first deals, and build the function. The role is based in San Francisco, with travel of up to 30%
What You Will Own
• Strategy and offerings. Define which indications and companies fit Amae, starting with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and treatment-resistant depression, and build offerings for each buyer: Medical affairs: real-world evidence, HEOR and outcomes research, investigator-initiated studies Commercial: patient journey and unmet-need insights, adherence and care-pathway evidence R&D: trial site and recruitment partnerships, endpoint and biomarker development, natural history studies Data: de-identified longitudinal datasets and custom analyses
• Deals. Own the pipeline from target list to signed contract across large pharma and CNS biotech. Lead proposals, pricing, and SOWs, and negotiate agreements with Legal. Sell to the scientific question, not the dataset.
• Delivery and compliance. Hand signed work to our research, data, and clinical teams and own partner satisfaction and renewal. Build guardrails with Compliance on fair market value, Anti-Kickback, HIPAA de-identification, IRB review, and patient consent.
• The function. Set up the CRM, forecasting, contract templates, and pricing, and hire the team as the business grows.
You will be measured on contracted partnership revenue, signed partners across all four buyer types, pipeline and forecast accuracy, and repeat engagements.
What You'll Have
• 7+ years in life sciences business development, partnerships, or commercial roles, including selling to pharma medical affairs, commercial, or clinical development
• A record of closing complex, multi-year pharma or biotech deals in RWE, research collaborations, trial sites, or data. Bring the deals you sourced and closed.
• Fluency in how pharma buys: who holds budget and how a study moves from concept to signed SOW
• Working knowledge of RWE, trial operations, and the compliance rules for provider and industry partnerships
• Comfort holding your own with psychiatrists, data scientists, and pharma medical directors
• You have built something from zero and are comfortable doing the work before you have a team
Nice to Have
• A network in CNS and psychiatry at pharma or biotech
• Experience at a provider-based data company, specialty care network, or site management organization
• Familiarity with digital biomarkers, novel endpoints, or the current psychiatry pipeline
What We're Building
Most healthcare companies ask you to optimize an existing system. We're building one that has never existed.
• A national care model designed for the highest-acuity patients in behavioral health.
• Precision medicine for severe mental illness, using multimodal clinical, behavioral, and social data to personalize treatment.
• A clinical operating system that integrates longitudinal data, real-time patient signals, and purpose-built tools into a single decision layer.
• New science and measurement frameworks to define what real outcomes look like in SMI.
• A health-system partnership model proving coordinated SMI care can work at scale.
Compensation & Benefits
Amae Health is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The base salary range for this role is $165,000 to $190,000 per year, plus variable compensation tied to contracted partnership revenue and meaningful equity. Final pay depends on experience. Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage. Parental leave and programs built around well-being. We'll share specifics during the interview process.
Amae Health is building the care platform, the precision medicine, and the frontier science that severe mental illness has never had. If you want to be part of creating something this hard and this important, something that has never been done, we'd like to talk.
What We Value
• We center care in all we do. Empathy is not a brand value. It’s how we make clinical decisions, build products, and treat each other.
• We challenge convention. The existing system is the problem. We question it, we test alternatives, and we move with urgency when something works.
• We take the work seriously, not ourselves. High standards and humanity are not in tension. We hold a hard bar for quality while leaving room for humor and levity.
• Your job isn’t done until the job is done. We close gaps, we follow through, and we don’t hide behind titles or org charts.
• We win together and fail together. We own outcomes as a team. We learn fast. We don’t do blame.
• We hustle with humility. Speed matters. So does integrity. We assume best intent and stay grounded in the mission.