Director, Drug Product Development

Company Description

Deciphera, a member of ONO, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing important new medicines to improve the lives of people with cancer. We are leveraging our proprietary switch-control kinase inhibitor platform and deep expertise in kinase biology to develop a broad portfolio of innovative medicines.

Enabled by our proprietary drug discovery platform, Deciphera has developed a diverse pipeline of wholly-owned drug candidates. QINLOCK® (ripretinib) is Deciphera’s switch control inhibitor developed for the treatment of fourth-line GIST. QINLOCK is approved in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.  We wholly own QINLOCK and all of our drug candidates with the exception of a development and commercialization out-license agreement for QINLOCK in Greater China. In addition to QINLOCK, we have identified and advanced multiple product candidates from our platform into clinical studies, including vimseltinib and DCC-3116.  

See here for more details on our portfolio.

We offer an outstanding culture and opportunity for personal and professional growth guided by our “PATHS” Core Values and how we work together. We are proud to be Great Place to Work Certified 2023 and rank #25 on Fortune’s Best Places to Work Small and Midsized Biotech Companies in 2023. Find more details about our award-winning culture here. 

Job Description

We are seeking a Director, Drug Product Development to lead and manage formulation development, manufacturing process development, and clinical manufacturing programs for drug products that are part of Deciphera’s growing clinical pipeline of predominantly small molecule NCEs.

This is an exciting opportunity within a very dynamic Technical Operations organization where you will have significant responsibility toward the formulation development, process development/manufacturing and regulatory approval of Deciphera anticancer drug products as both a subject matter expert and leader of cross functional teams.  It will provide ample opportunity to demonstrate your technical experience, problem-solving ability, and pharmaceutical development acuity to craft and execute drug product technical development plans and achieve project milestones that are critical to moving Deciphera’s clinical program programs forward.  The role provides for technical and regulatory exposure at all stages of the product development cycle.  The successful candidate will also have a significant role in helping to establish new scientific capabilities within the Pharmaceutical Development organization to support its long-term growth.

This position will be located at the Waltham, Massachusetts office.

What You’ll Do:

• Serve as a scientific leader for small molecule oral solid drug product development of new chemical entities (NCEs), including preclinical and clinical formulation design, manufacturing process development, technology transfer, and scale-up.
• Lead and manage cross-functional teams engaged in external development activities and cGMP manufacturing of Deciphera’s clinical bulk drug product and finished goods to ensure on-time and on-budget fulfillment.
• Review, revise and approve controlled GMP documents (Master Batch Records, Executed Batch Records, etc.) and technical reports.  Maintain internal archives of relevant development information and process data.
• Monitor, track and trend process performance during the clinical development stage. Utilize data analytics to support risk assessments, investigations, root cause identification and CAPA implementation and provide historical baseline for future operational and process-related improvements.
• Work closely with internal Chemical Development, Analytical Development, Quality Assurance, Regulatory CMC, Supply Chain and external CDMOs to ensure operational excellence with respect to timelines, budgets, and attainment of technical, regulatory and business goals/milestones.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with Deciphera’s CDMOs and technical partners and participate in periodic business and technical meetings with relevant CDMOs.
• Participate in the selection of drug product CDMOs based upon core capabilities, capacity and track record of regulatory compliance
• Play a key role in authoring CMC content for Module 3 CTDs. Participate in RTQs and meetings with FDA, EMA and related regulatory authorities as needed.
• Build internal technical/scientific capabilities within the Drug Product Development organization, particularly with respect to workflows associated with early development (pre-clinical to clinical transition) and early-to-late drug product formulation and process ref