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Salary: USD 150,000 - 200,000 / annual
Epogee, a food science and lipid chemistry company (subsidiary of Medici Brands), is seeking an Innovation Manager to lead technology scouting and evaluation across the food and adjacent biotech sectors.
You will be responsible for identifying and vetting emerging technologies in food science, ingredients, nutraceuticals, and related biotech platforms. This role combines deep technical evaluation with commercial judgment to assess which innovations merit investment.
Key responsibilities include:
**Technology Scouting & Screening**: Build and maintain landscape maps across priority domains (encapsulation, controlled delivery, protein functionality, novel processing, pharma/biotech platforms with food applicability). Source and monitor patent literature, academic research, national labs, tech transfer offices, startup pipelines, SBIR/STTR awardees, VC portfolios, and scientific conferences. Operate a stage-gated pipeline with explicit scoring rubrics to evaluate and prioritize opportunities.
**Technical & IP Diligence**: Lead technical diligence by reading primary literature, interrogating underlying data, and designing or commissioning confirmatory experiments. Conduct IP diligence alongside outside counsel, including patent landscaping, freedom-to-operate assessment, claim strength analysis, and design-around risk evaluation. Assess manufacturability and cost-in-use at commercial scale.
**Business Case & Customer Discovery**: Translate technologies into defensible commercial cases covering addressable application space, competitive alternatives, cost-in-use analysis, regulatory pathways, and capital/timeline requirements. Conduct structured discovery with formulators, brand teams, R&D, co-manufacturers, and distributors. Deliver make/buy/partner recommendations.
**Partnerships & Deals**: Assist with structuring and evaluating agreements (MTAs, NDAs, joint development agreements, licensing terms). Support M&A planning and venture investment diligence including technical workstreams, integration risk, and investment memo preparation.
This is a full-time, in-office role based in New York City with five days per week onsite. Travel required to assess manufacturing operations.
**Requirements**:
- 5+ years evaluating technologies or businesses in R&D, corporate development, consulting, venture, or similar role
- Advanced degree (MS, PhD, MBA) in technical or business discipline preferred; however, sufficient technical expertise to evaluate and make accurate judgments on technology is required
- Ability to evaluate technical depth, work through primary literature, and press on data behind claims
- Commercial judgment to understand and prioritize based on application fit, cost-in-use, competitive alternatives, and commercialization; understanding of consumer trends, behaviors, and product/market fit
- Working fluency in IP: ability to read patents, understand claims, and know when to escalate to counsel
- Venture capital, corporate venture, tech transfer, or licensing experience is a plus
