NLP & LLM Data Scientist – Healthcare & Life Sciences

NLP PEOPLE; Progress (PA); Remote; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a skilled NLP Data Scientist to join their AI & Life Sciences Solutions team. This role focuses on utilizing cutting-edge natural language processing techniques to analyze and interpret clinical data, driving innovations in real-world data initiatives. You will work alongside clinical and data scientists to develop NLP models that enhance drug development processes. With a mission to expedite access to life-saving therapies, this position offers a unique opportunity to contribute to impactful healthcare solutions while working in a collaborative and dynamic environment.

Benefits

Medical and prescription drug benefits

Health savings accounts

Dental plans

Vision benefits

401k retirement plan

Paid parental leave

Paid time off

Qualifications

• 2+ years in NLP with a strong focus on healthcare applications.
• Master’s or Ph.D. in a relevant field is required.

Responsibilities

• Leverage NLP and LLMs to process unstructured medical data.
• Collaborate with scientists to create efficient NLP models.

Skills

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Machine Learning

Data Analysis

Communication Skills

Problem-Solving

Education

Master’s or Ph.D. in Computational Biology

Master’s or Ph.D. in Data Science

Master’s or Ph.D. in Machine Learning

Tools

Python

SQL

NLTK

spaCy

Hugging Face Transformers

PyTorch

TensorFlow

AWS

Job description

NLP & LLM Data Scientist – Healthcare & Life Sciences

Company: Norstella

Location: Remote, United States

Date Posted: Apr 4, 2025

Employment Type: Full Time

Job ID: R-1069

About Norstella

At Norstella, our mission is simple: to help our clients bring life-saving therapies to market quicker and help patients in need. Founded in 2022, but with history going back to 1939, Norstella unites best-in-class brands to help clients navigate the complexities at each step of the drug development life cycle and get the right treatments to the right patients at the right time.

Each organization (Citeline, Evaluate, MMIT, Panalgo, The Dedham Group) delivers must-have answers for critical strategic and commercial decision-making. Together, via our market-leading brands, we help our clients:

1. Citeline – accelerate the drug development cycle
2. Evaluate – bring the right drugs to market
3. MMIT – identify barriers to patient access
4. Panalgo – turn data into insight faster
5. The Dedham Group – think strategically for specialty therapeutics

By combining the efforts of each organization under Norstella, we can offer an even wider breadth of expertise, cutting-edge data solutions and expert advisory services alongside advanced technologies such as real-world data, machine learning and predictive analytics.

As one of the largest global pharma intelligence solution providers, Norstella has a footprint across the globe with teams of experts delivering world-class solutions in the USA, UK, The Netherlands, Japan, China and India.

Job Description

Norstella Real World Data (RWD) is seeking a skilled NLP Data Scientist with a clinical background focused on Language Models to join our AI & Life Sciences Solutions team. Your expertise in processing and understanding natural language data, along with your knowledge of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and laboratory reports analysis, will be instrumental in driving our data science initiatives and innovations, particularly in the development of rich multimodal real-world datasets to expedite RWD-driven drug development in pharma.

Responsibilities

1. Employ and leverage NLP and open-source Large Language Models (LLM) such as LLama2, Mixtral, Qwen, BERT, etc., to extract, process, and interpret unstructured medical data from diverse sources like EHRs, medical notes, and laboratory reports.
2. Collaborate with clinical scientists and data scientists to create efficient NLP models for healthcare, exhibiting an understanding of both the technical and medical aspects of the data.
3. Conduct data cleaning, preprocessing, and validation to maintain the accuracy and reliability of insights gathered from NLP processes.
4. Validate and present data findings to stakeholders, exhibiting clear and effective communication skills.

Qualifications

1. Master’s or Ph.D. degree in Computational Biology, Computer Science, Data Science, Computational Linguistics, Machine Learning, or a related analytical field.
2. Deep understanding and direct experience (2+ years) in handling and interpreting either Electronic Health Records (EHR) and laboratory test results or genetic test results is a must.
3. Proven experience (2+ years) in NLP with a strong knowledge of NLP techniques such as Named Entity Recognition (NER), text summarization, topic modeling, etc. and their applied use in healthcare.
4. Expert-level understanding and practical experience (1+ years) with open-source Large Language Models (Llama2/3, Mixtral etc.), e.g., prompt engineering, inference, and fine-tuning.
5. Proficient in Python and SQL, with strong experience in NLP libraries such as NLTK, spaCy, Hugging Face Transformers, and deep learning libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow. Familiarity with common data science and ML practices, e.g., version control systems, agile methodologies, and documentation.
6. Experience in working with AWS cloud environment and large databases (e.g., AWS Redshift).
7. Experience in managing ML lifecycle using open-source tools (e.g., MLflow). Detail-oriented with strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
8. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present complex data to a non-technical audience.

Preferred Qualifications

1. Experience dealing with protected health information (PHI) and familiarity with healthcare-related data privacy laws such as HIPAA.
2. Familiarity with standard healthcare codes and terminologies such as ICD-10, CPT, LOINC, and SNOMED CT.
3. Experience in RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and vector store in the context of storing large volumes of healthcare unstructured documents and querying those.

Benefits

Medical and prescription drug benefits, health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts, dental plans and vision benefits, basic life and AD&D benefits, 401k retirement plan, short- and long-term disability, paid parental leave, paid time off.

Principles for Success at Norstella

1. Bold, Passionate, Mission-First: We have a lofty mission to Smooth Access to Life-Saving Therapies and we will get there by being bold and passionate about the mission and our clients.
2. Integrity, Truth, Reality: We make promises that we can keep, and goals that push us to new heights.
3. Kindness, Empathy, Grace: We will empathize with everyone’s situation, provide positive and constructive feedback with kindness.
4. Resilience, Mettle, Perseverance: We will persevere – even in difficult and challenging situations.
5. Humility, Gratitude, Learning: We will be true learners by showing humility and gratitude in our work.

The expected base salary for this position ranges from $140,000 to $200,000. It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range. Salary offers are based on a wide range of factors including relevant skills, training, experience, education, and, where applicable, licensure or certifications obtained.

Norstella is an equal opportunities employer and does not discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, race, color, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability or age.