Principal Scientist, Retinal Degeneration

Job Title: Principal Scientist, Retinal Degeneration

Location: Cambridge, MA

Join the engine of Sanofi’s mission — where deep immunoscience meets bold, AI-powered research. In R&D, you’ll drive breakthroughs that could turn the impossible into possible for millions.

Sanofi is seeking a highly motivated Principal Scientist to drive preclinical drug discovery programs for blinding retinal diseases, including age‑related macular degeneration and glaucoma. As a Principal Scientist in the Retinal Degeneration group within Ophthalmology Research, you will use innovative experimental approaches and advanced disease models to validate neuroprotective therapeutic strategies and discover promising drug candidates. The successful candidate will work collaboratively in matrixed, cross‑functional teams to generate high‑quality and comprehensive data packages to nominate and advance therapeutic candidates toward clinical development.

This role presents an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of ophthalmology therapeutics and bring transformative vision‑preserving treatments to patients around the world.

We’re an R&D‑driven, AI‑powered biopharma company committed to improving people’s lives and delivering compelling growth. Our deep understanding of the immune system – and innovative pipeline – enables us to invent medicines and vaccines that treat and protect millions of people around the world. Together, we chase the miracles of science to improve people’s lives.

• Apply scientific expertise and judgement to initiate, design, direct, and execute research studies to translate new targets from discovery to therapeutic disease programs and preclinical development
• Work independently, proactively and be an impactful contributor and leader of research projects and pipeline programs in a matrixed team environment to achieve go/no‑go decisions
• Design, conduct, and direct in vitro mechanism‑of‑action, proof‑of‑concept, and biomarker studies to validate targets and evaluate neuroprotective therapeutic strategies
• Collaborate cross‑functionally to screen preclinical candidates of diverse modalities using target‑ and disease‑relevant functional readouts that inform on pharmacology and efficacy
• Actively contribute to interdisciplinary research programs in a highly collaborative manner across internal groups and with external partners
• Prepare high‑quality analyses, interpretation, documentation, and presentations to support project milestones, publications, patent filings, and regulatory (IND/CTA) filings
• Present project data packages at governance meetings
• Grow a reputation in the internal and external scientific community through high impact publications, productive scientific collaborations and active participation in conferences

• Earned Ph.D. or equivalent degree in cell biology, neuroscience, or other relevant scientific discipline, and 5+ years of research experience in biopharmaceutical or academic setting
• Demonstrated experience (1 year or more ideally) in drug development at a biopharmaceutical company
• Experience evaluating and validating new therapeutic targets required, preferably for retinal or neurodegenerative diseases
• Extensive cell culture experience, including work with primary cells, iPSC‑derived cells, or 3D in vitro models
• Comprehensive experience with a broad range of molecular, cellular, and biochemical methods, assay development, and in vitro disease modeling
• Experience preparing high‑quality documents including experimental protocols, SOPs, technical reports, and presentations
• Track record of significant contributions to research projects and scientific publications

• Experience in retinal disease and degeneration or neurodegeneration research strongly preferred
• Experience using computational approaches (e.g., R, Python) to analyze data strongly preferred
• Program leadership experience in an industry setting
• Experience authoring regulatory documents to support IND or CTA applications with agencies like the FDA and EMA
• Experience managing studies at CROs
• Familiarity with wide range of therapeutic modalities including biologics,…