Principal Scientist, Materials Science

Why Patients Need You  

Pfizer’s purpose is to deliver breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Research and Development is at the heart of fulfilling Pfizer’s purpose as we work to translate advanced science and technologies into the therapies and vaccines that matter most. Whether you are in the discovery sciences, ensuring drug safety and efficacy or supporting clinical trials, you will apply cutting edge design and process development capabilities to accelerate and bring the best-in-class medicines to patients around the world.  

What You Will Achieve  

When you join Pfizer, you'll be joining a company and team with a desire to bring new, cutting-edge medicines to patients around the world. As a member of our team, you'll use science and technology to design, characterize and develop the solid form of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and drug product formulations from discovery to commercial launch. You will be able to leverage your existing scientific knowledge, as well as develop in new areas, to evaluate the chemical & physical stability, bio-performance and manufacturability of the drug product across a diverse range of therapeutic areas. 
 
As a pharmaceutical materials characterization scientist, you will utilize our advanced solid-state analytical laboratory to understand and optimize the solid-state structure and particle attributes of Pfizer small molecule drug products.  You will be recognized as a technical expert and a significant scientific contributor. With your deep knowledge of the discipline, you will regularly contribute at the therapeutic area level and can represent the department on multidisciplinary teams. You will be entrusted with setting objectives and planning resource requirements for your project team. You will be using your scientific judgment to adapt standard methods and techniques by applying prior work experience. You will undertake mentoring activities to guide team members.  

Through your expertise and extensive knowledge, you will be able to foster a culture that promotes innovation and thrives on doing better for patients and healthcare. 

How You Will Achieve It  

• Use solid-state analytical techniques such as x-ray diffraction, thermal methods, IR/Raman spectroscopy, and microscopy as well as mapping and imaging techniques to develop high quality materials and to evaluate physical stability of these materials in formulations.

• Where required, develop methods to detect and monitor API form of the drug substance in the drug product.

• Apply advanced organic solid-state structural knowledge to solve scientific problems by integrating solid-state laboratory data with theoretical methodologies. Provide expert interpretation and contextualization of experimental data to make recommendations for further studies and quality control strategies.

• Participate on multidisciplinary project teams and partner with colleagues to define and recommend screening and characterization strategies according to project timelines and work with crystallization and formulation scientist to optimize materials properties for enhanced performance of drug products.

• Coach, mentor, and collaborate with colleagues within DPD as well as across Pharmaceutical Sciences, contingent workers, and industrial trainees as needed.

• Design and oversee work packages of external partners, provide tactical guidance and critical analysis of raw data.

• Maintaining a contemporary in-depth appreciation of the application of state of the art solid-state and particle analytics to the development of API and pharmaceutical dosage forms and improving our workflows.

• Author scientific proposals for collaboration with internal and external partners and support the authorship of development reports, and regulatory submission documents (e.g., Common Technical Dossier for drug product filings).

Qualifications ​

Must-Have  

• A Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics, Chemistry, Engineering, Materials Science, (or equivalent subject) with at least 4 years of relevant experience is required, or a MS in Chemistry, Engineering, Materials Science, or Pharmaceutics (or equivalent subject) and at least 9 years of relevant experience is needed.