Advisor - Engineering - Drug Substance - Synthetic Molecule Design and Development (SMDD) at Eli Lilly and Company

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

Lilly’s Synthetic Molecule Design and Development (SMDD) is involved in key activities for the development of active pharmaceutical ingredients and formulated drug products from pre-clinical phases through commercialization of drug substances and drug products for small molecules, synthetic oligonucleotides, and synthetic peptides. Our scientists develop key technical and business solutions across the portfolio using their deep technical expertise to speed up testing of the clinical hypothesis and overall drug development.  SMDD tackles this diversity of responsibilities by recognizing that an even greater diversity of talents and cultures is necessary to deliver the next generation of life changing medicines to patients!

SMDD is seeking outstanding engineering candidates to work within the process design and development team! This position presents an opportunity to work side by side with chemists, analytical chemists, formulation scientists and other engineers to develop new technical solutions to accelerate our exciting portfolio. The position will be based in Indianapolis where research is conducted in a new, state of the art development facility.

Top candidates must demonstrate a history of strong technical depth, scientific leadership, and a willingness to promote a collaborative, team-based approach to problem solving. The responsibilities and opportunities for this role include:

• Apply engineering fundamentals towards designing and optimizing drug substance chemical processes for Lilly’s synthetic molecules organization.  This includes a variety of unit operations associated with the chemical synthesis of traditional small molecule drugs, oligonucleotides, and synthetically derived peptide drug candidates.

• Design and execute experiments in a laboratory setting and leverage knowledge of chemical reaction kinetics, heat and mass transfer, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, process control, and process modelling to ensure robust processes are developed that are capable of error free scale-up, ensuring a reliable supply of early and late phase clinical trial materials.

• Demonstrate learning agility to master the many facets of synthetic process design including learning new unit operations such as crystallization, filtration, isolation, drying, batch and continuous chemistry, milling, solids transfer, liquid handling equipment, among others. Apply the understanding of these unit operations to enable the assembly of complete synthetic processes to manufacture drug candidates.

• Serve as a member of integrated commercialization teams responsible for collaboratively developing, testing, and overseeing the execution of the designed processes in the lab and up to and including the manufacturing facilities.

• Take ownership for the learning and understanding of operating within a regulated industry and the requirements for compliance with regulations, guidelines, procedures, and practices governing drug research and development, including the departmental and corporate standard operating practices, and safety procedures.

• Collaborate closely with multifunctional organizations including those groups responsible for analytical testing of products, groups developing the final product dosage forms, groups providing oversight and assurance of adherence to quality standards, organizations providing guidance around regulatory requirements, and those responsible for safety and environmental commitments.

• Engineers in SMDD will be responsible for overseeing scaleup and technology transfer to manufacturing facilities within and external to Lilly through team meetings, site visits, and process monitoring.

• New development engineers are responsible for continuing a learning mindset through examination of relevant literature, continuing membership in external professional organizations, contributing to the external scientific community through publishing and communicating appropriate scientific advances at relevant industry conferences. Lilly development engineers engage in a highly collaborative work environment across and beyond SMDD and Lilly, including external academic researchers and pre-competitive collaborations.

• With experience, Lilly engineers are responsible for direction and mentorship of less experienced scientists and engineers to deliver the portfolio and innovation projects. All development scientists are responsible for ensuring new technologies and methodologies are documented and broadly shared across the organization through publishing and presenting original research externally, authoring internal technical documents, and developing and documenting process control strategies.

• Cultivate an inclusive environment by promoting diverse thought and shared experiences to deliver innovative solutions that address unmet technical needs.

Basic Requirements:

• PhD in Chemical Engineering

• MSc in Chemical Engineering with 7+ years of experience

• BSc in Chemical Engineering with 10+ years of experience

Additional Skills and Preferences:                         

• Experience with design, development, and optimization of synthetic process manufacturing unit operations.

• Experience with modeling and simulation tools, data analytics and predictive analytics.

• Experience in batch and continuous unit operations.  Experience on technical considerations for equipment design and integration, process monitoring, integration of process analytical technologies (PAT) systems.

• Excellent oral communication and documentation skills.

• Demonstrate ability to effectively collaborate with multidisciplinary teams.

• Demonstrate leadership behaviors with ability to accept challenges, seek opportunities to remove barriers, influence without authority, and lead in areas of uncertainty.

• Demonstrate exemplary teamwork/interpersonal skills.

• Demonstrate problem solving, attention to detail and result oriented behaviors in a fast-paced environment.

Additional Information

• Travel: 0 to 10%

• Position Location:  Local/Onsite in Indianapolis, IN.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and help our company develop talented individuals for future leadership roles. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, African American Network, Chinese Culture Network, Early Career Professionals, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinos at Lilly, PRIDE (LGBTQ + Allies), Veterans Leadership Network, Women’s Network, Working and Living with Disabilities. Learn more about all of our groups.

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

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