Senior Director, DMPK

Vertex Pharmaceuticals LLC; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Vertex San Diego’s Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) team seeks a Senior Director to lead and shape the DMPK organization, guiding strategy, resourcing, and cross-functional alignment with other sites. This onsite role responsibilities include mentoring staff, coordinating discovery-to-development activities, and ensuring regulatory readiness while advancing Vertex’s portfolio.

The ideal candidate brings extensive DMPK leadership and a proven track record in pharma, with the ability to

Qualifications

• Senior-level DMPK leadership in pharma with cross-functional experience.
• Strong management skills and a track record in leadership roles.
• Experience communicating complex DMPK data for regulatory filings.
• Experience coordinating discovery to development and regulatory activities.

Responsibilities

• Serves as DMPK functional lead on multidisciplinary project teams to advance drug programs.
• Collaborates with colleagues to design studies addressing key project issues.
• Prepares DMPK documents to support development nominations and regulatory filings.
• Provides strategic leadership to align DMPK with Vertex R&D goals.
• Manages personnel and budget, overseeing hiring and resource deployment.
• Represents DMPK on governance committees and with senior management.

Skills

DMPK leadership

Cross-functional leadership

ADME optimization

Regulatory strategy

Mentoring

Drug metabolism

Education

Bachelor's degree 20+ years

Master's degree 15+ years

Ph.D. 11+ years

Leadership experience

Job description

Job Description

General Summary

Vertex San Diego Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) team is seeking a highly motivated, experienced scientist and leader at the Senior Director level to help advance discovery and development of transformational therapies for serious unmet medical needs. The Senior Director will be part of the local site DMPK leadership team. This role's responsibilities include developing and maintaining optimal organization within DMPK, as well as the scientific and managerial coordination of its groups and personnel. This role will optimize interdisciplinary activities within DMPK and integrate activities with those of the other sites and departments and thus play a major role in shaping overall project and portfolio plans. This role will provide scientific leadership to help advance the discovery and development of transformational therapies for serious unmet medical needs at Vertex.

This is an onsite position at our San Diego research site.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Serves as a DMPK functional lead on multidisciplinary project teams to advance Vertex drug discovery and development programs from early discovery to late development and marketing approval
• Collaborates with medicinal chemists and implements strategies to design and evaluate drug candidates avoiding ADME and drug-drug interaction liabilities
• Critically evaluates and interprets in vitro and in vivo DMPK data and liaises with DMPK colleagues to design studies to address key project issues
• Prepares DMPK documents to support development candidate nominations and regulatory filings including Investigator Brochures, IND's (or equivalent), and marketing applications
• Helps to develop a strategy and vision for their team that is aligned with global DMPK and Vertex R&D mission and goals
• Manages all scientific and business activities to support discovery and development projects and integrates practices and work across global DMPK as well as cross-functionally
• Represents DMPK at company-wide R&D governance committees and with senior management
• Provides strong scientific and strategic leadership, urgency, and business acumen to grow and progress the Vertex portfolio in a speedy manner
• Mentors on scientific and ethical development, motivates personnel and resolves conflicts
• Manages personnel performance in line with corporate goals and strategies and develops career growth opportunities across DMPK
• Constructs resourcing plans, draft-budgets, manages approved budgets and oversees hiring activities
• Oversees regular review of staff deployment and project status, to ensure all projects are appropriately prioritized and resourced, and key goals and timelines are met
• Balances degree of innovative exploration with pursuit of defined project objectives, and coordinates acquisition of new scientific capabilities, as appropriate
• Ensures compatibility with regulatory standards and corporate strategies
• Cultivates reputation for DMPK and the company in the external scientific community

Knowledge and Skills

• Demonstrates extensive relevant experience of working in a multi-functional DMPK group and across functions to address key questions
• Demonstrates fundamental understanding of various DMPK tools (in vitro and in vivo) and their application in solving broader project challenges in addition to possessing specialist knowledge and expertise in one or more specific areas (e.g., drug metabolizing enzymology, drug transporters, bioanalysis, biotransformation, PK prediction, etc.).
• Possesses extensive experience working with small molecules to optimize their ADME properties and to employ the requisite tools to proactively identify their risks to influence strategy / decision-making
• Demonstrates a practical and advanced understanding of related scientific disciplines
• Has significant experience and skills representing DMPK on multiple project teams
• Ability to mentor and train junior members of the DMPK group
• Experience and/or willingness to adopt and champion the use of AI approaches to accelerate drug discovery and development
• Communicates in written and spoken form with high precision and skill, and is able to synthesize broad datasets and concepts into key conclusions for effective dissemination internally and externally (including in regulatory documents)
• Experience working in a leadership role as part of a multi-functional DMPK group in a pharmaceutical company with productive, relevant employment experience

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree (or equivalent degree) and 20+ years of productive, relevant employment experience, or
• Master's degree (or equivalent degree) and 15+ years of productive, relevant employment experience, or
• Ph.D. (or equivalent degree) and 11+ years of productive, relevant post-doctoral employment experience
• Extensive experience working in a managerial/leadership role as part of a multi-functional DMPK group in a pharmaceutical company
• Strong management and leadership skills, with emphasis on developing