Sr Manager, Regulatory Affairs CMC

We’re here for one reason and one reason only – to cure cancer. Every moment is dedicated to developing treatments and every action moves us one step closer to our goal. We’ve made incredible scientific breakthroughs and our pioneering personalized CAR T-cell therapies have changed the paradigm. But we’re not finished yet.

Join Kite, as we make even bigger advances in cancer therapies, and help shape where our business and medical science goes next.

We believe every employee deserves a great leader. People Leaders are the cornerstone to the employee experience at Gilead and Kite. As a people leader now or in the future, you are the key driver in evolving our culture and creating an environment where every employee feels included, developed and empowered to fulfil their aspirations. Join Kite and help create more tomorrows.

Job Description

Kite is transitioning from its current Santa Monica headquarters, with employees expected to relocate to our Thousand Oaks, CA, Foster City, CA or El Segundo, CA office beginning in January 2027. While this role will be based in Santa Monica through 2026, applicants should take this planned relocation into consideration. Kite supports a flexible working policy, offering a balanced approach with two days of remote working and three days working onsite.

Key Responsibilities

Regulatory Strategy and Program Leadership

• Lead or support integrated global CMC regulatory strategies for both T-cell drug product and LVV, with clear differentiation between early-stage, pivotal/late-stage, registration, and post-approval expectations.
• Serve as the Regulatory CMC representative on program and technical teams; convert program decisions into regulatory requirements, submission plans, health authority engagement strategies, risks, mitigations, and decision points.
• Define phase-appropriate CMC content and evidence expectations, while proactively identifying activities that must mature before pivotal studies, BLA/MAA filing, launch, or post-approval implementation.
• Ensure regulatory strategies consider the end-to-end product relationship, including how LVV quality, variability, changes, and supply continuity may affect T-cell manufacturing performance and final drug product quality.

T-cell Drug Product Manufacturing

• Provide regulatory guidance for autologous T-cell manufacturing processes, including starting material receipt, cell selection/activation, transduction, expansion, harvest, formulation, fill/finish, cryopreservation, storage, shipping, and chain-of-identity/chain-of-custody controls.
• Assess process changes involving manufacturing scale, equipment, automation, closed processing, hold times, manufacturing duration, formulation, cryopreservation, shipping configuration, raw materials, and critical suppliers.
• Guide development and lifecycle management of the T-cell control strategy, including critical quality attributes, critical process parameters, in-process controls, release and stability specifications, potency, identity, purity, viability, safety testing, and comparability acceptance criteria.
• Provide regulatory input on manufacturing success-rate considerations, deviations, out-of-specification or atypical results, process robustness, facility controls, contamination control, and inspection-readiness narratives relevant to individualized patient manufacturing.
• Support site additions, tech transfers, manufacturing network expansion, process performance qualification, comparability, validation, and post-approval change strategies for T-cell manufacturing and testing sites.

Lentiviral Vector Manufacturing

• Provide regulatory guidance for LVV manufacture from plasmid/raw-material controls and cell-bank systems through upstream production, harvest, clarification,…