Associate Director/Director, GRA, Regulatory Affairs Head – Canada
About this opportunity
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.
Purpose:
The purpose of the GRA, Regulatory Affairs Head – Canada is to lead the Regulatory Affairs Group to ensure the success of new product registration, line extensions and new indications in alignment with the affiliate business plan, while maintaining compliance for all products with local regulations and quality system requirements. To create an environment of operational excellence through regulatory expertise by managing and developing direct reports and collaborating with cross-functional teams to successfully achieve affiliate regulatory objectives.
This is a hybrid role – onsite presence at our Toronto office will be 10 days or more per month (or at least 50% of the time), determined in collaboration with your manager and based on business needs.
This role is eligible for additional forms of compensation, such as participation in the Lilly Bonus Program and a car allowance.
This posting is for an existing vacancy.
The GRA, Regulatory Affairs Head – Canada also engages with Regional EuCan Regulatory and Canadian affiliate therapeutic medical leads to reinforce alignment of regulatory strategy between the Canadian affiliate, GRA and Global Product Development Team/Business Unit.
Regulatory Strategy
Develop and implement the regulatory plan and strategy
Ensure local regulatory strategies are aligned to global strategy (e.g. Accelerate Reach and Scale goals, product claims and labelling)
Ensure submission and approval of high-quality regulatory applications within planned timelines
Actively participate in the affiliate launch teams, anticipating and delivering regulatory outcomes to support the affiliate launch plan.
Represent the Regulatory Affairs function in Affiliate Lead Team, New Product Planning discussions
Represent Lilly in external industry meetings
Maintain awareness of current regulations and anticipate implications and opportunities of changes and communicate these changes to management and cross-functional experts and implement locally.
Interact directly or facilitate interactions with regulatory bodies on a regular basis
Lead Health Canada CTA and NDS/submission strategy for Canada, including combined-indication filings and above-country access requests (e.g., pre-NOC SAP access)
Maintain awareness of regulatory-HTA interdependencies (e.g., CDA-AMC/pCPA timing) to inform submission sequencing and affiliate planning
Regulatory Compliance
Implement robust processes to keep regulatory archive complete and up-to-date and to ensure that all current licenses and labels are readily available.
Manage and support internal and external audits / assessments / self-inspections in collaboration with Regulatory Quality personnel.
Lead and coordinate implementation of corrective/preventive actions
Lead Regulatory quality oversight of Third Parties
Raise awareness to leadership and relevant functions on compliance issues and initiatives and provide technical support to other affiliate functions.
Ensure bilingual (English/French) regulatory documentation and labelling compliance specific to the Canadian market
Maintain inspection readiness for evolving regulatory guidance (e.g., ICH E6(R3)) and lead affiliate response to related inspection inquiries
Labelling
Ensure adherence with global labelling procedures and document relevant exceptions
Process Improvement and External Engagement
Consistently participate in affiliate cross-functional teams and provide regulatory status updates, input and knowledge.
Ensure alignment and implementation of launch readiness initiatives.
Facilitate and maintain relationships with key Regulatory officials
Provide affiliate training and education on regulatory matters and provide regulatory input to affiliate strategic initiatives to improve and maintain understanding of regulatory affairs within affiliate leadership.
Partner with Regulatory Policy leader on external engagement for Canada.
Personal and Professional Development
Dynamic leader that challenges the status quo internally and in interactions with Health Canada. Fully engaged in and living Lilly’s ARS strategy.
Effectively lead, manage, motivate, and mentor the Regulatory Affairs team and assist direct reports in extending their technical skills. Assure key talent retention, development, reward, and recognition.
Attend appropriate external symposia, workshops, or conferences to develop and sustain an appropriate level of professional expertise
Minimum Qualification Requirements:
Relevant scientific degree or Bachelor's degree (or higher) in physical or biological sciences
Significant working experience of at least 5 years in Regulatory Affairs, ideally within pharma
Demonstrated experience with the Health Canada regulatory framework (CTA/NDS pathways, Food and Drug Regulations)
Strong team leadership experience with proven experience in retention and development
Problem solving skills, sound clinical/regulatory judgement; decision making capability in pressurized circumstance
Strong interpersonal, team working, negotiating, writing, presentation and communication skills
Experience working in and leading a diverse and multicultural team
Influencing skills
Proven experience maintaining relationships and reputation with vendors
Bilingual proficiency (English/French) considered an asset
Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form ( https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation ) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.
Lilly does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.
Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is
$132,000 - $193,600
Full-time equivalent employees may also be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a pension plan; vacation benefits; eligibility for healthcare benefits; flexible benefits (if applicable) life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities). Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.
#WeAreLilly
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Regulatory Affairs role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 164 comparable Associate Director Regulatory Affairs roles across 48 biopharma companies.
Salary context
40 of 164 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 164 comparable roles
+ 21 more countries
Seniority mix
164 of 164 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
22 of 164 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.