Principal Scientist

Job Description

Our company has a rapidly growing interdisciplinary team of scientists in London and exciting plans to expand our London presence, initially at the Francis Crick Institute as part of our ‘Skylab’ expansion in 2024, and from 2027 in our new ‘state of art’ London Discovery Research Centre and UK headquarters at the hub of London’s Knowledge Quarter.  This will be home to approximately 180 scientists alongside other colleagues in clinical, regulatory and business roles, including marketing, finance and administration.

Our teams combine leading drug discovery capabilities and world-class R&D with the purpose of turning breakthrough science into life-changing medicines, applying leading-edge science to support target validation and identify high quality clinical candidates in the areas of Neuroscience & Immunology.

To deliver on our mission of turning breakthrough science into meaningful and impactful medicines, we are seeking a Principal Scientist Drug Metabolism & Pharmacokinetics (Director level) to lead drug metabolism and pharmacokinetic efforts within the London Discovery Team and play an important part in our growth journey building a truly integrated drug discovery site.

What you will do:

You will play a key role in multidisciplinary, highly collaborative discovery team, setting drug metabolism, pharmacokinetic (DMPK) and translational strategies for programs within multiple therapeutic areas, ensuring rigorous scientific quality and pipeline progression.   The Principal Scientist will be a key contributor to multi-disciplinary drug discovery efforts providing an integrated understanding of DMPK properties, pharmacokinetics/ pharmacodynamics (PK/PD), and drug interaction (DDI) risk of novel therapeutics.   Working collaboratively with our discovery teams at the Francis Crick Institute and the London Bioscience Innovation Centre, and across our global DMPK function, you will take advantage of the technologies and capabilities across the wider company network and partner externally with academic and biotech groups.

Additionally, you will serve as a people manager, responsible for the supervision of several direct reports.  You will be responsible for helping to establish and maintain a culture of engagement within the London DMPK organization, driving diversity and inclusion initiatives, leading a small group of talented scientists and supporting their growth and personal development including performance management. To accomplish the above, the successful candidate must have excellent interpersonal, cross functional collaboration and communication skills and a passion for developing talent.

You will represent DMPK in local cross-discipline leadership team activities while connecting strongly with global DMPK leadership.

Key Characteristics:

• A strong knowledge of DMPK, ADME and/or PK/PD principles, including the ability to use and interpret a wide array of experimental and in silico data to advance drug discovery efforts for small molecule therapeutics, ultimately leading to selection of clinical candidates.
• Ability to readily partner with related scientific disciplines that are pertinent to drug discovery and early development (e.g., chemistry, protein sciences, pharmacology, drug safety/toxicology and translational medicine) and an ability to lead cross-discipline projects.
• Ability to recruit, mentor, coach, and support career development of a team of talented scientists. 
• Maintaining a proactive and visible external scientific presence including authoring significant scientific publications, instigating & leading external collaborations, presenting at key scientific conferences, and/or chairing high-impact scientific sessions.
• Strong personal development focus and ability to thrive on increasing levels of responsibility.

Position Qualifications:

Education Minimum Requirement:  

• Ph.D./Master’s with substantial relevant pharmaceutical industry experience.
• Degree in biochemistry, chemistry, pharmacology, pharmaceutical sciences, biomedical engineering or related field.

Required Experience and Skills:   

• Demonstrated project-team leadership contributing to development, execution and fostering of DMPK and translational pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic/efficacy strategies for small molecule and/or peptide therapeutics.

• Evidence of partnering with other functions (especially Chemistry) to identify, design and deliver strategies to overcome challenges in the DMPK space.

• Experienced in integrating preclinical DMPK and pharmacology to enable translational modeling and simulation to support dose selection, design of PK/PD and safety assessment studies, and dose justifications for preclinical and clinical studies.
• Experience in assessing the impact of various factors on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of novel therapeutics and communicating analyses and recommendations to interdisciplinary teams and management.
• Ability to design and interpret novel, hypothesis driven ADME studies support the optimization of small molecules, peptides and/or targeted therapies.
• Relevant experience to include a record of increasing responsibility and independence in a similar industrial/academic setting; Experience working within a research-driven pharmaceutical company.
• People management experience:  recruitment, mentoring and coaching a small team of talented scientists. 

Your role at our company is integral to helping the world meet new breakthroughs that affect generations to come, and we’re counting on your skills and inventiveness to help make meaningful contributions to global medical advancement. At our company, we’re inventing for life. 

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing diverse, talented, and committed people together. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when diverse ideas come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively for the common good. We are an equal opportunity employer, committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. 

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

Employee Status:

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Job Posting End Date:

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Job Posting End Date:07/09/2024

A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Requisition ID:R299041