Senior PKPD Modeling Scientist : Maternity Cover

Senior PKPD Modeling Scientist
- Maternity Cover

Are you a scientist with a flair for mathematical modelling and a passion for pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics? Join us on a temporary maternity cover assignment where your work will directly shape how our innovative therapies move from preclinical science into first-in-human trials — and ultimately, into the lives of patients living with serious chronic diseases.

As a Senior PKPD Modeling Scientist, you will contribute to a wide variety of tasks related to PK and PKPD assessment, modelling and animal-to-human translation. You'll support interdisciplinary project teams across the Novo Nordisk pipeline — from early research through to first-in-human studies — collaborating with in vivo pharmacologists, in vitro biologists, clinical modelling scientists, toxicologists, clinicians and regulatory affairs specialists.

Your main responsibilities will include:

• Setting the direction for and driving the execution of the translational PK and PK/PD screening strategy, in alignment with key research, non-clinical and clinical stakeholders to ensure efficient project progression
• Designing preclinical PK and PK/PD studies, and interpreting and reporting the resulting data
• Building mathematical models and performing simulations of human PK and PD, drawing on in-house in vitro and animal data as well as relevant literature to inform project decisions up to first-in-human studies
• Guiding projects on topics such as preclinical study design, dose setting for toxicity studies, and first-in-human clinical dose setting and trial design
• Interacting with regulatory authorities and providing written input to regulatory documents (e.g. IND, IMPD, NDA)
• Maintaining state-of-the-art competencies within PK/PD and acting as an innovator across the R&D value chain

In Research & Development, you'll be part of a unit that explores bold scientific ideas and advances them into clinical testing. We combine curiosity, AI tools, and human data to develop transformative therapies. Through collaboration and operational excellence, we shape and deliver an innovative pipeline to meet future patient needs.

You will join one of the two PKPD teams within DMPK and Modelling Sciences, anchored in Global Research. The teams work closely together and are made up of dedicated, highly motivated PKPD scientists supporting our innovative portfolio with pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic evaluation — from early research through to first-in-human trials. We foster knowledge-sharing, collaboration and a supportive environment where individuals contribute their expertise and collectively drive the implementation of translational mathematical modelling across the value chain.

Even in a temporary role, you'll find real opportunities to develop your personal and scientific skills.

To succeed in this role, we expect you to bring a strong scientific foundation combined with hands‑on modelling experience. Specifically:

• A Ph.D. within Pharmaceutical, Medical, Physics, Mathematical or Engineering sciences (or equivalent pharmaceutical industry experience)
• 3-5 years of relevant post-PhD experience gained within the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry, including direct exposure to drug discovery, translational sciences and/or drug development activities.
• Strong understanding of PKPD (and ideally PBPK) theory, modelling methodology, data interpretation and translational science
• Experience modelling biological or other natural processes using mechanistic and/or combined mechanistic and empirical models
• Experience with pharmacokinetic and modelling software (e.g. Phoenix Win Nonlin/NLME, NONMEM or equivalent) as well as data processing tools (e.g. R, Python, Matlab)
• General digital literacy across generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Copilot is preferred

On a personal level, you have excellent communication and stakeholder management skills and interact effectively with colleagues from diverse backgrounds. You work independently and thrive within cross-functional teams and with external partners to drive research initiatives and achieve project goals.

We…