Principal Scientist​/Sr. Principal Scientist - Bioconjugation Process Development

Principal Scientist/Sr. Principal Scientist – Bioconjugation Process Development

Join to apply for the Principal Scientist/Sr. Principal Scientist – Bioconjugation Process Development role at Eli Lilly and Company.

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life‑changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first.

We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Bioproduct Research and Development (BRD) is the large‑molecule process development organization within Lilly. BRD is responsible for material and data generation to support clinical trials and commercialization of biologic therapeutics such as mAbs and bioconjugates. Our team works to accelerate the development and manufacturing of new bioconjugate medicines for our patients. We perform innovative and cutting‑edge research to deliver bioconjugation processes, knowledge, and best practices to support clinical trials and commercialization for antibody‑drug conjugates (ADCs), antibody‑peptide conjugates (APCs), and antibody‑RNA conjugates (ARCs/AOCs).

We collaborate with our Synthetic Molecule Design and Development (SMDD), discovery, and biologics development colleagues to advance this exciting class of new drugs and seek fundamental learning and platform approaches to their development.

Our bioconjugation team is tasked with establishing the infrastructure required to conduct detailed process development and glean fundamental understanding related to bioconjugate synthesis. A successful applicant will have experience with synthetic organic chemistry or biochemistry and have the drive to learn about bioconjugation principles to produce ADCs and similar modalities. We have an expanding and diverse portfolio of bioconjugates that require improved process understanding and development methods.

• Establish a productive laboratory program by directly designing and executing internal research plans, collaborating with teammates to analyze results, form conclusions, propose logical next steps, and report findings to a larger team.
• Learn and apply new skills such as bioconjugation, purification screening, OFAT and Design of Experiment methodology, and analytical sample analysis.
• Operate at the interface between disciplines and departments to quickly move from one scientific challenge to another while navigating ambiguity.
• Perform fundamental and detailed studies of each process step for bioconjugation development.
• Perform scale‑up demonstrations of bioconjugation processes and purifications to provide material and information for development purposes.
• Propose and test new methods to achieve bioconjugation and bioconjugate development, collaborating and sharing findings with partners.
• Strong oral and written communication skills are expected.
• Perform necessary documentation work such as electronic notebook maintenance, report authoring and regulatory/manufacturing documentation.
• Bring new and useful concepts, methods, and ideas for how research can be improved and share these to make our group better.
• Demonstrate learning agility across modalities (e.g. small molecule, peptide and oligonucleotide).
• Help formulate commercial manufacturing strategy and collaborate with manufacturing partners to deliver robust processes that are ultimately suitable for large‑scale production.

• BS with 6+ years of relevant experience or Master’s degree with 3+ years of relevant experience in synthetic organic chemistry, biochemistry, chemical biology, chemical engineering or related field.

• Experience with small molecule organic synthesis, knowledge of reaction mechanisms, and design of reactions.
• Experience with performing bioconjugation reactions at small‑scale.
• Knowledge of basic antibody class, structure,…