Director of Compliance and Legal, Life Science

Hippocratic AI•Palo Alto, CA

9d•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking a Director of Compliance and Legal to build and lead the compliance and legal infrastructure that enables Hippocratic AI to sell into, deploy within, and scale across pharma, medtech, diagnostics, and global regulated environments. This leader will own the policies, contract frameworks, and compliance programs that give our pharma partners and enterprise customers confidence to move forward — and that keep the company protected as we grow. This is a commercially oriented compliance and legal role. You will be in the room with pharma partners, on calls with procurement and legal teams, and at the table during enterprise deal negotiations. You will build the compliance posture and legal operations that accelerate sales cycles, reduce customer friction, and demonstrate that Hippocratic AI meets the rigorous standards that regulated healthcare organizations require. The ideal candidate has deep experience navigating the legal and compliance landscape of pharma and life sciences, understands how enterprise procurement and governance processes work from the customer's side, and knows how to build scalable legal and compliance operations in high-growth environments. Join experts who've spent their careers improving care, advancing science, and building world-changing technologies — ensuring our platform is powerful, trusted, and truly transformative. The Director of Compliance and Legal is responsible for building and managing the compliance programs, legal frameworks, and risk management practices that support Hippocratic AI's commercial growth and customer relationships across regulated healthcare and life sciences environments. You will serve as the company's lead on regulatory compliance, contractual negotiations, data privacy, and commercial legal operations — with a particular focus on enabling and supporting enterprise sales and pharma partner engagements. You will work directly with pharma partners and customers on contract negotiations, compliance reviews, and governance requirements. Internally, you will partner with Sales, Medical Affairs, Product, and Customer Success to ensure the company's compliance and legal posture keeps pace with commercial momentum. You will report to the VP of Medical Affairs, and work closely with the President of Life Sciences,Chief Commercial Officer, Sales, Legal, Customer Success, Product, and Engineering leadership.

Requirements

7–15 years of experience in legal, compliance, or regulatory roles within healthcare, pharma, biotech, digital health, or life sciences services organizations. A mix of law firm and in-house experience is valued.
JD from an accredited law school
Significant experience negotiating enterprise commercial contracts with pharma and large healthcare organizations, including MSAs, BAAs, DPAs, and technology licensing agreements.
Strong working knowledge of healthcare compliance frameworks including HIPAA, anti-kickback statute, false claims act, Sunshine Act, PhRMA Code, and state-level healthcare regulations.
Direct experience engaging with pharma legal, compliance, procurement, and governance teams as part of enterprise sales or vendor qualification processes.
Ability to build compliance programs and legal operations from early stages in environments where they don't yet fully exist.
Comfort working in high-growth environments with limited structure and high expectations for ownership, judgment, and cross-functional collaboration.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with the ability to make complex legal and regulatory concepts accessible to both customers and internal non-legal teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience with digital health platforms, AI in healthcare, SaaS, or patient engagement technologies.
Familiarity with GDPR, EU AI Act, and international data privacy and AI governance frameworks.
Prior experience on the vendor or technology side selling into or deploying within large pharma organizations.
Understanding of FDA-regulated software, medical device classification, or clinical trial regulations.
Certified in Healthcare Compliance (CHC) or similar certification is a plus.
Startup or early-stage company experience.
Additional degree (MBA, MPH, MS) is a plus.

Responsibilities

Lead all commercial contract negotiations with pharma partners and enterprise customers, including NDAs, master service agreements, BAAs, data processing agreements, statements of work, and licensing terms.
Develop and maintain a contract playbook with standardized terms, pre-approved fallback positions, and escalation criteria that enable Sales to move efficiently through pharma procurement and legal review cycles.
Serve as the primary legal point of contact for customer legal, procurement, and compliance teams during deal negotiations and ongoing account management.
Provide responsive, commercially oriented legal guidance that helps close enterprise deals by resolving customer concerns around liability, indemnification, IP ownership, data rights, and regulatory obligations.
Review and advise on partnership structures, channel agreements, reseller arrangements, and strategic collaborations with pharma and life sciences organizations.
Manage outside counsel relationships and coordinate external legal support for specialized matters as needed.
Build and operationalize a compliance program that meets the expectations of pharma and enterprise healthcare customers, covering healthcare regulations, anti-kickback, transparency reporting, promotional compliance, and industry codes of conduct.
Develop customer-facing compliance documentation, certifications, and audit-readiness materials that pharma partners require during vendor qualification and ongoing governance reviews.
Participate directly in customer compliance reviews, vendor assessments, and governance discussions — representing Hippocratic AI's compliance posture to pharma legal, compliance, and procurement stakeholders.
Advise Sales and Customer Success teams on how to navigate customer compliance requirements, vendor onboarding processes, and governance frameworks at major pharma organizations.
Maintain awareness of customer-side compliance expectations including PhRMA Code, OIG guidance, Sunshine Act, and state-level transparency and marketing regulations, and ensure the company's operations align accordingly.
Establish compliance monitoring, training, and reporting processes that scale with the company's growing customer base and deployment footprint.
Own the company's data privacy compliance strategy across HIPAA, GDPR, state privacy laws, and industry-specific requirements — with a focus on meeting the privacy and security expectations of pharma and medtech customers.
Develop and maintain privacy policies, data processing frameworks, breach notification procedures, and cross-border data transfer mechanisms.
Serve as the primary point of contact for customer privacy, security, and IT governance teams during sales processes, security questionnaires, and deployment reviews.
Partner with Engineering and Product to ensure privacy-by-design principles are embedded in platform architecture and can be demonstrated credibly to customers.
Monitor and interpret evolving regulations affecting AI in healthcare, including FDA AI/ML guidance, EU AI Act, and emerging state and federal legislation, and advise leadership and customer-facing teams on their implications.
Partner with Medical Affairs to ensure the company's compliance posture addresses MLR requirements, non-promotional standards, and adverse event reporting obligations from a legal and regulatory perspective.
Support customer-facing conversations where pharma regulatory, legal, and governance stakeholders require assurance of the company's regulatory positioning and compliance infrastructure.
Develop frameworks and documentation that articulate the company's AI governance practices, model oversight, and responsible AI commitments in terms that satisfy pharma and enterprise compliance expectations.