Principal Scientist; Cell Line Development

Every Exelixis employee is united in an ambitious cause: to launch innovative medicines that give patients, and their families hope for the future. In this pursuit, we know our employees are our most valuable asset. After operating in the challenging biotech sector for 25 years, we have a proven track record of resiliency in the face of adversity. The success of our lead product has provided a solid commercial foundation allowing us to reinvigorate our research efforts and grow our team in areas such as Drug Discovery, Clinical Development and Commercial.

As we expand our global partnerships and further reinvest in R&D to help us discover the next breakthrough for difficult‑to‑treat cancers, we’re seeking to add talented, dedicated employees to power our mission.

Cancer is our cause. Make it yours, too.

As a member of the Biotherapeutics group, the incumbent will play a key role in supporting the group’s discovery and preclinical development efforts by possessing skills and experience in recombinant antibody and bispecific antibody production and purification/characterization. The incumbent will be responsible for delivering high performing and high‑quality mammalian cell lines that enable early‑phase biologics manufacturing for further development as potential therapeutic candidates or as ADCs.

The ideal candidate will design and test vector constructs, engineer host cells, conduct transfection, selection and clone generation campaign in CHO cells, and apply a deep theoretical understanding of recombinant protein expression to guide the improvement of titer in stable cell lines.

• Design and execute experiments to develop CHO-based cell lines for biologic therapeutics moving into clinical development.
• Significant effort designing complex experimental approaches to improve expression systems and workflows through innovation and implementation of new technology is also an important part of this role.
• Perform therapeutic CHO cell line development processes including transfection, single cell cloning, imaging analysis to document monoclonality, clone screening and progression, characterization, and cell banking and stability assessment of cell banks using state-of-the-art equipment.
• Drive innovation through the development of improved expression vectors and genetic components, host cell line engineering and/or cell line development process optimization.
• Identify emerging practices for biologics therapeutic cell line development and manufacturing to shape scientific strategies and continued innovation.
• Represent the cell line development team on cross‑functional projects, making decisions for cell line activities and effectively communicating results, progress and plans.
• Comply with company health and safety policies and general laboratory practices.

No supervisory responsibilities. Individual contributor role.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in related scientific discipline such as molecular biology, biochemistry, biology or microbiology and a minimum of eleven (11) years of experience in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry; or,
• Master’s degree in related scientific discipline such as molecular biology, biochemistry, biology or microbiology and a minimum of nine (9) years of experience in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry.
• PhD degree in related scientific discipline such as molecular biology, biochemistry, biology or microbiology and a minimum of five (5) years of experience in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry.
• Equivalent combination of education and experience.

Experience:

• The role is for an experienced incumbent who is eager, hands‑on, detail‑oriented, driven, self‑motivated and experienced to contribute with minimal onboarding or training.
• The candidate must have demonstrated proficiency in molecular biology, vector construction and genetic elements that impact recombinant antibody/bispecific expression.
• The candidate must have experience with various stable CHO expression platforms to articulate pros and cons and recommend one suitable for developing manufacturing…